Power Asymmetry in the US Labor Market and Its Impact on Political Participation

• In Event: Public Policy and Spatial Politics in American Political Economy

Abstract

Research on political participation in the United States has long pointed to the workplace as an important site for developing skills and confidence that facilitate engagement in civic and political affairs. Yet the United States is noteworthy for the proportion of its workforce that has no formal channels for participating in workplace governance. Even more, there is evidence that the public-private nature of the US welfare state discourages those dissatisfied with their working conditions from searching for a better job. How, then, does a person’s lack of control over their working conditions inform their confidence in themselves as a political actor, and how does this impact their political participation? To explore this understudied question, I study the shock to working conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Using both difference-in-difference and cross-sectional designs, I examine how personal efficacy and political behavior responded to the pandemic differently depending on how one’s working conditions were affected. Further, I show how welfare policies mediated this relationship by demonstrating the effect of state-level policy differences on changes either to people’s working conditions or to their ability to leave for a different job. Based on this study, I point to the importance of worker power in the labor market in informing patterns of political participation.

Author

• Jack Garigliano, Northwestern University