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The Past Half–Decade of Politics & the Economy in One Picture
“What it shows is the difference that the President’s party affiliation makes to the distribution of income during the four years of the president’s term.
This is a pretty fracking amazing picture. If correct it shows that all income levels would do better financially by voting for a Democrat vs. a Republican for President.
Mr. Rodrik continues:
“When a Republican president is in power, people at the top of the income distribution experience much larger real income gains than those at the bottom—a difference of 1.5 percent per year going from the bottom to the top quintile in the income distribution. The situation is reversed when a Democrat is in power: those who benefit the most are the lower income groups. If you are in the bottom quintile, the difference between having a Democratic or a Republican president in office is an income gain (or loss) of more than 2 percent per year! Strikingly, compared to Republicans, Democratic presidents generate higher income gains for all income groups (although the difference is statistically significant only for lower income groups).”
But then he asks:
“If Democrats produce better income results for everyone, and particularly for the more numerous lower-income groups, why do they not always win?”
Mr. Rodrik is an economist. The image comes from a forthcoming book by Larry Bartels, a professor at Princeton.
The answer to that question struck me as obvious: “Hey, economists! There are more factors to choosing a leader than your current and future economic status. In particular, that the Democratic party is associated with “liberal” social policies and the Republicans with “conservative” social policies most likely explains this away.”
But Mr. Rodrik also says:
“But Bartels does demolish two of the standard arguments regarding Republican advantages at the polls: the idea that poor Americans vote Republican for cultural reasons, or that Americans do not care about inequality.”
Of course he leaves that as the teaser to buy the book. Which I think I’m going to have to do.
That “poor people vote Republican because of social issues” and “the middle class vote Democrat to get ahead at no one’s expense” and “rich people vote Republican to stay and get further ahead” is pretty much conventional wisdom, I think.
Mr. Bartels will have to do one hell of a job to convince me that the conventional wisdom isn’t the true wisdom.
Found via Mr. Krugman, who also has serious doubts about this picture.
