Working-class Americans make up roughly 1% of U.S. lawmakers, 2% worldwide

Despite frequent rhetoric about supporting working-class voters, U.S. Democrats and Republicans nominate few candidates who previously worked in manual labor, service or clerical roles. Data indicate that only about 1% of state legislators and members of Congress have such backgrounds, a figure mirrored globally where the average sits at 2% across 97 democracies. The shortfall is not due to a lack of qualified workers; rather, campaign demands—time, money and personal risk—disproportionately deter them, and party leaders tend to back candidates they deem easier to fundraise for.

Notable exceptions include Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Troy Jackson, Jim Tomes, Sweden’s former prime minister Stefan Löfven and Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The authors propose measures ranging from candidate-training scholarships, exemplified by the New Jersey AFL-CIO’s Labor Candidates School, to more systemic changes such as party quotas or randomly selected citizen advisory panels. Without such interventions, the share of working-class elected officials is likely to remain minimal.