Working-class voters had high hopes that Donald Trump would help them out economically: Inflation and the economy were top priorities for Trump voters in 2024.
These voters have seen the fading of the American Dream first-hand: Over 90% of Americans did better than their parents in the decades after World War II, but only half born in 1980 will .
Why? A major reason is that employers pocketed workers’ fair share of productivity increases. Wages used to rise when productivity did; if that had continued, workers’ wages would be 43% higher than they are today. 6
You won’t hear about this from President Trump. Instead, his villain is foreign trade, and his solution is to use tariffs to bring back blue-collar jobs. But tariffs won’t work quickly, because onshoring means building ne