Key to 2008: The Middle-Income, Middle-Aged Voter

Middle-income, middle-aged workers may decide the 2008 presidential election. While many of these voters used to be loyal to the Republican Party, they are disillusioned by the Iraq war and the economy and have become swing voters.

These “new” swing voters are worried about maintaining health insurance, paying for their kids’ daycare and college, and keeping their jobs. Candidates are trying to get and keep these voters’ attention by focusing their message on middle-class concerns.

The middle-class, middle-aged voter

The middle-class, middle-aged voter has concerns that are different from the older counterparts nearing retirement and from the twenty-somethings just entering the workforce.

This swing voter has established her or himself in the workplace, but pay raises aren’t meeting increasing costs of necessities like health care, and rising education costs, if they have children. And a “good” salary of $40,000 - $100,000 has become a double edged sword - they can’t qualify for programs like Pell grants to cover education costs, or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that could help to make up the difference.

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake says people want “some sense of moving forward [but] people feel it’s the other way; it’s getting tougher and tougher, there’s no progress, no option, no more salary. It’s static.”

Healthcare: Candidates unveil plans to heal healthcare hardships

Many workplaces have cut benefits if they offer them at all, and deductibles and prescription costs have risen exponentially. The combination has hit the middle age, middle class workers hard – especially because just a generation ago, health benefits were considered a given for salaried workers in this country.

In response, presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama, have vowed to cut costs by offering health plans that would avoid the costs associated with bureaucracies – both government and private.

They would allow individuals to choose from private health plans or a public insurance option modeled after Medicare, and similar to the program Senators themselves receive. For more on this, click here.

Republican candidates Rudi Giuliani and Mitt Romney have attacked this approach, saying it could lead to expensive federal subsidies. But many experts believe that Clinton’s message of consumer choice and cost sharing may strike the right notes with the anxious middle class.

‘The Parent Generation’: Daycare and college costs

Though not on voters’ priority lists, the cost of daycare and college has risen substantially, leaving middle-income voters with big education bills for both young and adult children. Workers are paying an average of $15,000 for child care, which equals a large chunk of a middle-income salary. For more on middle-class families and childcare, click here.

As the annual price tag of a college education tops the $40,000 mark at more American institutions, more middle-income families are struggling to pay tuition. So candidates are coming up with plans to help them.

Democratic Senator Joseph Biden says he would replace two existing federal tax breaks for college expenses with a refundable tax credit of up to $3,000 that would cover the average cost of tuition and fees at a public two-year college and more than half of the average cost of tuition and fees at a public four-year college. Other Democratic candidates have offered more-modest tax proposals. John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, has proposed a $500 "Get Ahead" credit for college savings, and Senator Chris Dodd from Connecticut has said he would allow families to deduct up to $2,000 for money they set aside in Section 529 college-savings plans.

While U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's student-aid agenda has offered legislation that would expand the Lifetime Learning tax credit to allow students to claim up to 50 percent of their tuition and other expenses, up from the current 20 percent. Economic Anxiety: Job Market

The middle-class American worker is feeling less secure in the job market. The outsourcing of service jobs and new technologies have reshaped the workforce, leaving more professionals at risk.

Elizabeth Jacobs, a Brookings Institution Scholar, says that workers with an advanced degree are as vulnerable to losing their income as workers without a high school diploma. And Jacob Hacker, Yale political scientist and author of “The Great Risk Shift,” says that middle and lower income workers share several characteristics. Both have lost benefits and are worried about keeping their skills current in the changing marketplace. Hacker says that government could alleviate risk with wage insurance, in which government would pay a percentage of wages lost when a worker moves to a lower-paying job. While this option gets a lot of criticism, Hacker says it would act as an “opportunity trampoline,” allowing workers to shift jobs and expand skills.

Presidential candidates know that they have to address the middle class’ economic concerns in order to get their vote. John Edwards has been crafting his message – that the poor and middle class have similar issues– to underscore the urgency of the situation.

Election Strategy

Election experts say that voters need to feel the connection between these general concerns and their day-to-day lives in order to vote for a new government – but some workers have yet to feel the squeeze.

Although the Democratic candidates are addressing middle class concerns in their campaign proposals, they have elected to force vote counting and vetoes on the issues over and over – rather than passing a bill and forcing the Republicans to filibuster.

But October 1, 2007 is the beginning of the new fiscal year – so that could change. WomenMatter will continue to track how middle-class issues play into the 2008 election, and affect the strategies that candidates and parties choose to use.

What do you think?

What do you feel is urgent? What are the issues that you plan to vote on? How do you feel about health care, education, and jobs?

Let your representatives know what you think!

About WomenMatter

WomenMatter is a place to discuss life issues with other women. We don't want to wedge women apart, but rather bring them together to dialogue. WomenMatter is the place where we can take one issue at a time, match what we do about it every day of our lives to the facts of the bigger system that we all live in and recognize that every idea for making it better has tradeoffs. WomenMatter is dedicated to engaging women in the political process. To do this we have invested in the most in-depth NONPARTISAN information, because we trust each woman to make up her own mind.

• We track nine issues every week and update this website several times a week.
• We do continuous research to make sure that we are meeting the needs of women across the country of all ages, races, incomes, preferences, and religions.
• To explore our archive of past Environment Life Issue updates, click here.
  
  We offer all our services free of charge without memberships or subscriptions. To help us maintain this work - not just in election years but as a continuing part of women’s lives - please make a tax deductible donation, click here.

Article Posted on: 8/5/2006