Who’s unemployed and who votes – note the connection

You can’t help noticing that tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans are commanding far more political attention than the continued dirge of miserable employment figures, despite the fact that 2 million people recently faced being cut from unemployment assistance. Ezra Klein of the Washington Post offers one reason for this disconnect.

He paired the unemployment of high school and college graduates with their voting rates in the most recent election and found this:


In short: People with a high school diploma or less are struggling with massive rates of unemployment, but they don't turn out to vote in nearly the numbers as those with a college education. On the flip-side, though a quarter of Americans have college diplomas, they made up 51 percent of the electorate in 2010. And in that group, the unemployment rate is only about 5 percent. So if you believe that politicians actually answer to those who vote, their current obsessions may make a little more sense.