[Vision2020] The 47 Percent: Another Perspective

[Nicholas Gier]

Good Morning Visionaries:


Here is another perspective from *The New Republic*.  The charts can be
viewed in the attached file.


Here is the conclustion:


"But while a disheartening 20 percent of Americans make less than $16,000
per year, they represented just 6 percent of the electorate in 2008. Put
differently, Obama still would have received 52 percent of the vote if none
of these voters had participated. Thus, while individuals making less than
$16,000 per year and without federal income tax liability represent a
surprising share of the population, low turnout ensures that they only
exert the slightest tug on the outcome of presidential elections, for
better or worse."


*Who Are Obama’s 47 Percent?*

   - Nate Cohn  *The New Republic *September 18, 2012 | 4:04 pm

While tax policy analysts dive into the details of the 47 percent of
Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes, it’s also worth examining
whether Romney’s right about the 47 percent of Americans who support the
president’s reelection. Surely not all Democrats fit Romney’s caricature,
but are Democrats the party of indolent free-loaders? Romney might be
surprised to learn that the two parties share a relatively similar and
relatively representative economic and educational profile. Many
demographic fissures, like race and religion, truly divide Democrats and
Republicans, but income, education, and dependency just aren’t among them.

According to a Pew Research study based on polls conducted in 2012,
Democrats are, indeed, slightly poorer than Republicans. 18 percent of
Democrats make less than $20,000 per year compared to 11 percent of
Republicans, although some of the difference might be attributable to age.
But an overwhelming majority of self-identified Democrats and Republicans
belong to the middle the class or higher, and the two parties generally
resemble the broader profile of registered voters.

[image:
http://www.tnr.com/sites/default/files/composition%20of%20the%20parties_0.gif]

Although income doesn’t neatly divide the two parties, the demographic
composition of less fortunate partisans differs greatly by party. The
following map limits the 2008 election results to counties where median
income is less than $30,000 per year, and it reveals Democrats performing
strongly among Native Americans scattered in reservations across the
northern plains and southwest, African American communities arching across
the midland South, and the Hispanic voters lining the U.S.-Mexico
border. But Republicans perform well in the impoverished communities of the
upland South, stretching from eastern Kentucky to west Texas. On balance,
these counties voted for Obama by a 52-47 margin, just slightly less than
his 53-46 national victory.

[image:
http://www.tnr.com/sites/default/files/median%20income%20less%20than%2030k_0.gif]

And Republicans do not possess a monopoly on the “makers,” either. A look
at the nations richest counties and best-educated counties shows Obama
performing better than he does nationally. But there are stark regional
differences: Obama dominated the affluent and well educated metropolitan
areas of the eastern and western seaboards, as well as the resort
communities that dot the Mountain West, like Sun Valley, Park City, Jackson
Hole, and Aspen. But Romney dominated the conservative suburban counties
ringing Southern and Midwestern cities like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston,
Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis.

 [image: http://www.tnr.com/sites/default/files/over%2055k.gif]

But are Democrats more dependent on the federal government, despite a
similar economic profile? Here the numbers are less clear, but a Maxwell
survey<http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/uploadedFiles/campbell/data_sources/InequalityinAmericanSocietyReportonMaxwellPollof2007.pdf>showed
that 55 percent of Republicans have used a government program
compared to 65 percent of Democrats and Independents. Again, this isn’t a
tremendous difference, especially since “government program” can include
programs perceived as serving the “undeserving poor” like welfare and food
stamps, as well as more popular entitlements like Medicare, student loans,
or unemployment insurance.

The partisan affiliation of the voters who don’t pay federal income tax is
even less clear, especially since many voters who don’t pay the federal
income tax still contribute payroll and state taxes that might lead them to
believe they do pay federal income taxes. Of the 47 percent who don’t pay a
federal income tax, 53 percent make less than $16,000 per year. In 2008,
voters making less than $15,000 per year voted for Obama 73-25, perhaps
aided by a strong turnout among low-income African Americans or extremely
young voters.

But while a disheartening 20 percent of Americans make less than $16,000
per year, they represented just 6 percent of the electorate in 2008. Put
differently, Obama still would have received 52 percent of the vote if none
of these voters had participated. Thus, while individuals making less than
$16,000 per year and without federal income tax liability represent a
surprising share of the population, low turnout ensures that they only
exert the slightest tug on the outcome of presidential elections, for
better or worse.
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