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working class
Does the Working Class Support Trump's Attack on Migrant Workers? No!
Trump’s getting away with this even though nearly two-thirds of the public doesn’t agree with him on deporting hard-working immigrants. Where are the Democrats on this issue?
Jun 11, 2025
As Trump stokes conflict at immigration demonstrations, will the public side with Trump or the demonstrators?
Attacks on immigrant workers are accelerating as ICE zeros in on sites where immigrants gather to find work, and outside courts where immigrants go because their legal status requires it. The demonstrations erupted in Los Angeles as ICE arrested day-laborers who lined up at Home Depot waiting to be selected by contractors. ICE is also aggressively sweeping LA garment shops dependent on immigrant workers. Trump and ICE claim they are only seeking to deport violent criminals. But this flimsy excuse collapses against the reality of hundreds of undocumented workers, most with no prior contact with law enforcement, caught up in these raids, torn away from their families and friends.
Does the public at large endorse these arrests? Don’t working-class people in general want these undocumented workers deported to alleviate job competition? That apparently reasonable commonsense claim turns out to be wrong. according to recent survey data.
I reviewed this data in a recent Substack, but it bears repeating because it is so important to clearly understand what working people actually support.
The Cooperative Election Study (CES), with more than 500,000 respondents, asked the following question repeatedly from 2010 to 2020.
“Are you in favor of granting legal status to all illegal immigrants who have held jobs and paid taxes for at least three years and have not been convicted of any felony crimes.”
There are approximately one million undocumented workers in the LA area that fit this description. They are hard-working neighbors, families, and friends, not violent criminals. Clearly, they have wide-spread support withing the vast LA Hispanic community. But do Anglo workers support them?
I tackled that question in my book, Wall Street’s War on Workers, by sorting the CES data to include only white respondents without four-year college degrees, who are also in the bottom two-thirds of the income distribution.
The data show that our commonsense understanding about white working-class resentment towards immigrants was justified in 2010 when only 32 percent supported the statement that granted legal status, but by 2020, white working-class support for legalization jumped to 62 percent.
But that was way back in 2020, long before the Biden immigration surge. Have working-class sentiments about immigrants changed since 2020? Trump’s incessant pounding away at undocumented immigrants and his successful campaign in 2024 would suggest they would have.
We tested the exact same CES question again in a YouGov survey (April 2025) designed by the Labor Institute, the Center for Working Class Politics and the Rutgers Labor Education Action Research Network. The survey included 3,000 respondents from Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, largely white working-class states.
Before the survey, I was certain that support had plummeted, given the rise of job insecurity and inflation during the last four years. I expected that more voters in those Rust Belt states would be worried about losing their jobs to low-wage immigrants and would therefore be more open to Trump’s deportation campaign. But I was mistaken.
In these four states, 63 percent of the respondents supported “granting legal status to all illegal immigrants who have held jobs and paid taxes for at least three years and have not been convicted of any felony crimes.” Only 34 percent opposed the statement.
I’ve heard activists say that black voters are more hostile to immigrant workers, because many work in lower-wage jobs that face competition from undocumented workers. Wrong again: 77 percent of the black respondents in these four states favored the proposal. In every demographic and income category strong majorities favored “granting legal status” to these “illegal” hard-working immigrants.
Are the Democrats sleep-walking through this crisis?
Given this survey data, as well as just plain decency, the Democratic Party should be all over this issue. Democratic leaders of all ideological shades should be marching together arm-in-arm with the protestors, demanding a path to citizenship for hard-working, law-abiding undocumented workers. Why isn’t the Democratic leadership taking the lead?
I really don’t know. But I do know that their abdication leaves the field to Trump, who is doing all he can to provoke confrontations between the demonstrators and police, confrontations that play to his base’s fears and strengthens him. That would be much harder to do if Democratic elected officials were on the front lines. Trump’s getting away with this even though nearly two-thirds of the public doesn’t agree with him on deporting hard-working immigrants. That’s Democratic political malpractice.
If you step back and look at the broader picture, it sure seems like the Democrats have given up on bold support for working people. Yes, they will talk about the illegality of sending in the National Guard, they decry the blatant violations of habeas corpus, and they express concerns about Trump-the-Oligarch’s threat to democracy. But full-throated support for bringing immigrant workers out of the shadows and into citizenship? Radio silence.
It’s time to figure out, I think, how to create a new party of working people. As it turns out, I’m not alone. Nearly sixty percent of Rust Belt voters support that too! (More on that when we release our complete survey results, coming soon.)
Meanwhile, let’s hope that some Democrats join the activists on the frontlines, coming to the defense of working people in dire need of support. Is that really too much to ask of the one-time party of working people?
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Universalism, Not Abundance, Is the Only Real Defense Against Authoritarianism
Universalism is the only governing strategy strong enough to rebuild what Trumpism has corroded—not as a slogan, but as a material commitment.
Jun 07, 2025
She shows up just after 9:00 am, like she has most mornings since the letter arrived. The lobby is already full—mothers with strollers, older men gripping folders, a teenager in a hoodie with his eyes on the floor. She clutches the same folder she’s been carrying for weeks: pay stubs, proof of residency, a note from her landlord warning the rent will rise again. Her name will be called eventually. And when it is, a caseworker will skim her paperwork, ask a few quick questions, and decide whether she qualifies—for what, she’s not even sure anymore. Rent relief? Help with the electric bill? A food pantry referral? Maybe nothing.
This is what public help looks like in America: a maze, a line, a thousand little gates. Each with a lock that shifts depending on your zip code, your paperwork, or whether the system deems you deserving. Our safety net isn’t built to catch—it’s built to sort. And that structure—the means-tested, piecemeal logic of American social policy—hasn’t just failed to prevent collapse. It has laid the groundwork for authoritarianism.
President Donald Trump came to power on the promise to fight for the forgotten working class—for people like those in that lobby. Millions believed him. Not because they were fooled, but because the institutions that should have offered stability—unions, schools, housing, healthcare—were already gone. What remained were brittle bureaucracies that asked everything, offered little, and always arrived too late.
We cannot out-message collapse. We must out-govern it.
Trump didn’t fill that vacuum with solutions. He filled it with vengeance. Not policy that delivered—but posture that blamed. While Republicans translated grievance into governing power, Democrats lost their map.
After 2024, the party was hollowed out. Young men walked away. Working-class voters of every background followed. The party that once stood for labor and civil rights began to feel like the party of college towns and tax credits. People didn’t switch sides—they stopped believing anyone was on theirs.
In that vacuum, the Abundance Agenda gained traction. Promoted by liberal technocrats, it focuses on clearing bureaucratic thickets: zoning reform, streamlined permitting, housing acceleration. Build more. Build faster. Let growth lift all boats.
But abundance doesn’t ask who’s in the boat—and who keeps getting thrown overboard. It solves for scarcity without addressing exclusion. It tackles supply, not distribution. It removes friction but doesn’t restore trust. Growth is not solidarity. Innovation is not inclusion. And no one will rally behind a politics that treats them as consumers before recognizing them as neighbors or workers.
Now, in his second term, Trump no longer pretends. He is using the federal government not to build—but to punish. Agencies are purged. Civil rights protections erased. Grants come with loyalty tests. Through executive orders and loyalist appointments, he is dismantling the federal infrastructure of inclusion, plank by plank.
This isn’t small government. It’s selective government—enforcement without support, punishment without provision. It survives because public systems remain fractured and cruel. When your right to basic services depends on proving your worth, solidarity dies. People stop defending each other’s needs. They’re too busy proving their own.
The single mother in the lobby doesn’t call this authoritarianism. She doesn’t have to. She feels it in the form that changes overnight. In the disconnected phone numbers. In the line she waits in each morning—only to be told again: You don’t qualify.
Abundance won’t help her.
Zoning reform won’t keep her housed.
Solar panels won’t make her feel seen.
She doesn’t need a productivity agenda. She needs a government that shows up.
Because this is how democracy unravels—not in a cataclysm, but in the quiet, daily normalization of abandonment.
Trump must be stopped. But we won’t defeat authoritarianism with messaging. Not with moral clarity. Not with speeches. Democrats will not win by being right. They will win by delivering.
Universalism is the only governing strategy strong enough to rebuild what Trumpism has corroded—not as a slogan, but as a material commitment. We cannot out-message collapse. We must out-govern it.
Ask that woman in the lobby what failed, and she won’t name a policy theory. She’ll say: the office stopped calling. The money vanished. The form changed. Beneath that is something deeper: a belief that survival must be earned. That belonging must be begged for. And once that belief takes hold, it doesn’t just break programs. It breaks democracy.
Because when help is conditional, it becomes contestable. When people compete for scraps, they stop believing in the public. They stop believing in each other. When democracy fails, it’s not because people stop believing in freedom.
It’s because freedom stops being useful.
A ballot won’t quiet a hungry child. A speech won’t refill a prescription.
If democracy is to survive, it must show up in people’s lives.
And to show up, it must trust them first.
That woman is still waiting. Not for charity—for recognition. For someone to say: You matter. You belong. You should not have to beg to be seen. Universalism answers that hope. Not with pity, but with presence. Not with exceptions, but with guarantees. It does not ask what she did wrong. It simply says: You are part of this country. You are not alone.
Because if this republic is to endure, it won’t be because people begged for help.
It will be because we chose to build a government that finally refused to look away.
We chose to show up—not with hesitation, not with disclaimers, but with resolve.
Because in a nation this rich, no one should have to stand in line just to be seen.
No one should have to plead for the dignity that should already be theirs.
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No Tax on Tips? Democrats Could Learn Something From Effective GOP Pandering to the Working Class
If the Democrats ever hope again to be the party of the working class, they should never have allowed the Republicans to get credit for such a popular, if not flawed, proposal.
Jun 01, 2025
“This legislation will have a lasting impact on millions of Americans by protecting the hard-earned dollars of blue-collar workers, the very people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck. I urge my colleagues in the House to pass this important bill and send it to the President’s desk to be signed into law.” —Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
Ted Cruz? How could this labor-hating showboat get away with posturing as a defender of the working class – especially low-wage workers who live on tips? This is the same Ted Cruz who gets most of his campaign funds from those who got rich by exploiting low-wage workers. How did Cruz, of all people, take this issue away from the Democrats, the once so-called party of the working class?
It seems the Democrats didn’t care about this issue. It was viewed by the party policy makers as flawed and not worth the effort. They only got on board after Trump trumpeted the policy change, which they then noticed was wildly popular with the public.
What does it say when Ted Cruz appears to be considering the needs of working-class people before the Democrats get around to them?
Even today, after Cruz and Trump, my progressive colleagues disparage removing taxes on tips. They correctly point out it would be better to increase the federal minimum wage for all workers, which now stands at $7.50, and $2.13 for tip workers. $2.13? Further, they argue that low-wage workers would be better served with the passage of paid family leave, refundable tax credits, and extensive universal health care.
Those are all good ideas, but wouldn’t no tax on tips complement those policies?
The progressive Economic Policy Institute claims that no tax on tips “will harm more workers than it helps.” It will
- “Help very few workers and undermine pay increases for many more.
- Expand the use of tipped work—a system rife with discrimination and worker abuse— potentially leading to consumers being asked to tip on virtually every purchase.
- Deplete state and federal budgets and create new avenues of tax avoidance, especially for high earners.”
EPI makes similar arguments for no tax on overtime, saying the policy will:
- “Encourage excessive hours of work while exacerbating inequities between workers able to work long hours and those who cannot.
- Put downward pressure on base wages.
- Open up a tax loophole easily gamed by high earners that would drain public budgets while further complicating the tax system.”
I have enormous respect for my brothers and sisters at the EPI. They do excellent research on behalf of working people. But in this case, I fear they are missing or ignoring the bigger political picture. The Democrats and the left should never allow the Republicans to position themselves as working-class heroes. Helping low-wage workers should be what Democrats do and no tax on tips and no tax on overtime—done right—should have been part of the party’s package before it became part of Ted Cruz’s.
For those of us who have worked for tips and valued overtime pay, getting a tax break simply means more money in our pockets. It is an immediate pay raise, even if it may not be the best way to improve the standard of living for working people. I’m having trouble understanding why a direct good for some is not a good thing.
Most tipped workers earn low wages in the food industry and in gig services like Uber. They are grossly underpaid. So much so that many don’t work enough to pay income tax and so won’t benefit, but for those who make enough getting a tax break will help. That’s appealing, which is why about 75 percent of Americans support the idea, according to a 2024 Ipsos survey.
The same goes for overtime. Nearly two-thirds of all workers are forced to work overtime as a condition of their employment. Work weeks are often extended to 50 hours or more as employers seek to avoid hiring new workers and paying their benefits. It is cheaper to run the existing workforce into the ground. But those extra hours at time-and-half are taxed more heavily, workers know, making it feel like all that extra work is getting you nowhere. A tax break will be welcomed, not shunned, by those workers.
Trump filled the breach, making the proposal in a speech in Las Vegas in June 2024, and the Harris campaign chimed in half-heartedly in support of the proposal after she entered the race in July. The two Democratic senators from Nevada, the state with the most service workers per capita, fully supported Cruz’s effort.
After the bill passed unanimously in the Senate last week, Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, belatedly weighed in with: “Working Americans—from servers, to bartenders, delivery drivers, and everything in between—work hard for every dollar they earn and are the ones who deserve tax relief, not the ultra-rich.”
Nice words for the Ted Cruz-sponsored bill, but why wasn’t a Democrat proposing this appealing policy? And where was Chuck, years ago, when runaway inequality was decimating the lives of low-wage tip workers? He was celebrating a strategy that cast aside working people in favor of higher income, more educated Republican voters. As he infamously put it in 2016:
"For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio & Illinois & Wisconsin.”
In addition to picking up Republican votes, he wants those fat campaign donations especially from those “moderates” working on Wall Street.
If the Democrats ever hope again to be the party of the working class, they should never have allowed the Republicans to get credit for such a popular proposal. What does it say when Ted Cruz appears to be considering the needs of working-class people before the Democrats get around to them?
It didn’t happen because, I truly fear, that the Democrats really have no strategy and no desire to become again the party of the working class. They seem quite content to allow the Republicans fill the breach. Good riddance!
Meanwhile, the Republicans crush the government workers who protect our air and water, workplace safety, workers’ rights to organize, public health programs, and scores of programs and projects designed to make sure that working people aren’t exploited and damaged by corporate interests that treat them as fodder in a profit-making machine. No tax on tips is exquisite Republican pandering, and an effective one.
Which leaves us at a crossroads we can no longer avoid or pretend just isn’t there or view as too difficult to achieve. The billionaires indeed have two parties. We need one of our own.
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