We saw last week that most Americans no longer bother to vote, and that the party of non-voters far and away the biggest political party in the U.S. is disproportionately working class. Such electoral abstention is both reason for and result of public policy in the U.S., which among advanced capitalisms is uniquely unsupportive of workers. This mouthful of words imperfectly describes the interaction of two things. First, more than any other advanced capitalist economy, the United States relies on competitive labor markets to determine pay, employment, and other aspects of worker welfare. The minimum wage applies to a relatively small number of workers, has no obvious spillover on the overall level of wages, and is at its lowest level relative to average pay in 40 years.
Unemployment insurance is more time-limited than in other countries.
Exclusive of occupational health and safety regulation and equal employment opportunity laws protecting groups from discrimination, the state has almost no national policies safeguarding workers. Job security, training, even the provision of medical insurance are all determined at the workplace. The bottom line is that for most Americans, how one fares in the economy depends overwhelmingly on how one fares in the labor market. Second, in those labor markets, workers in the U.S. are relatively disorganized. Outside the public sector, only about 9 percent of workers belong to unions.