As the U.S. midterm elections loom, Republicans and Democrats clearly disagree over which issues should be front and center. Republicans want to talk about inflation, the economy, crime and “woke” liberals. Democrats want to focus on abortion and MAGA extremism.
Though Democrats’ reluctance to discuss the economy is understandable in some ways, it’s puzzling in others.
While inflation is high, Democrats could be reminding voters that the Biden administration has overseen significant drops in unemployment and poverty. That they don’t is part of a larger pattern, one that may reveal how much (or how little) Democratic officials care about people with low incomes.
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Good economic news
When President Biden took office, the unemployment rate was 6.4 percent. By September 2022, the rate had dropped to 3.5 percent. Unemployment has been just as low this year as in former president Donald Trump’s best year.
The covid-19 pandemic threw the economy into recession, which usually leads to more poverty. After the Great Recession of 2008, the U.S. poverty rate rose to 15 percent in 2010 and stayed there through 2012. Since the unemployment rate peaked at a higher level during the pandemic than it ever hit during that recession — almost 15 percent compared with 10 percent — and GDP shrank more, we would expect to see historically high levels of poverty in recent years.
That did not happen. Based on the official measure, the poverty rate increased just a little, from 10.5 percent in 2019 to 11.6 percent in 2021. The government’s Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which is more accurate, shows that the poverty rate actually dropped from 11.8 percent in 2019 to 7.8 percent in 2021. Reducing poverty by any amount during a brutal pandemic is a major accomplishment.
A recent study of child poverty offers more good news. Using the SPM, researchers calculated that one out of four American children lived in poverty in 1993. The figure for 2020 was just one in 10. Policymakers sometimes dream about cutting child poverty in half; in fact, the government did exactly that.
Why? Government programs. Unemployment insurance and the Child Tax Credit were deliberately enlarged during the pandemic, providing millions of Americans with income support. By design, enrollment in Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) expanded as people lost private health insurance and their paychecks. Over the past three decades, Social Security, the Earned Income Tax Credit, SNAP and low-income housing assistance have lifted millions of children out of poverty.
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So why aren’t Democrats bragging?
Currently, Americans say they trust Republicans more to handle the economy. In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, likely voters from both parties said the economy and inflation are the two most important problems facing the country. An observer might therefore expect Democrats to be eager to prove they can do good things for the economy. And with so many close races, Democrats might want to motivate low-income voters to turn out in November. Yet they have said remarkably little about bringing down poverty and unemployment. Why?
The short answer is, old habits are hard to break.
While writing a book about the social safety net, I analyzed how different parts of society talk about poverty. One chapter focuses on public officials, drawing from national party platforms and presidential State of the Union addresses between 2000 and 2020. These documents give us a good sense of priorities because they are so broad in scope.
Not surprisingly, Democrats have talked more about issues such as poverty, hunger and homelessness than Republicans have. But Democrats haven’t paid much attention to these issues. Nor do they often mention people who are poor, low-income or needy.
Rather, Democrats have devoted attention to workers, working men and women, working families and working Americans. For instance, their 2020 platform declared that “Democrats believe that it is a moral and an economic imperative that we support working families.” And they have consistently championed programs that benefit workers above and below the poverty line; prominent examples include Social Security, the Earned Income Tax Credit, pro-union laws and equal pay for women.
Studies by the Census Bureau and by poverty expert Robert Greenstein have found that inclusive and targeted programs have both been important in reducing hardship. Nevertheless, by devoting so much attention to problems that affect a wider range of Americans, Democrats have arguably made it harder to discuss their own accomplishments in reducing poverty and unemployment. This may have made it easier for Republicans to focus on inflation as the economy’s defining indicator.
Of course, touting progress against poverty might give Republicans a chance to label Democrats as the party of handouts and “welfare,” as they have in the past. But Democrats, if they wished, could find ways to counter that. They might point out that the biggest income support programs — Social Security, the Earned Income Tax Credit, unemployment insurance — only benefit people who are employed or have a history of paid work. Democrats could note lower rates of unemployment and child poverty. And they could cite poll results from this year showing that two-thirds of Americans think the federal government is doing too little to help lower-income people.
It is not unusual for voters to name “the economy” as one of the most important issues in an election year. But the health of the economy can be measured in many different ways. In previous elections, candidates and parties have highlighted those parts of the economy that worked in their favor. Democrats may be missing an opportunity to do the same this year.
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Christopher Howard is the Pamela C. Harriman Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William & Mary and author of Who Cares: The Social Safety Net in America (Oxford University Press).