Young men’s economic prospects are shifting, along with their politics
For David Tasker, an 18-year-old construction worker in Pennsylvania, his top financial priorities are having enough money for gas, dining out and spending on his girlfriend while living at home with his parents.
For David Tasker, an 18-year-old construction worker in Pennsylvania, his top financial priorities are having enough money for gas, dining out and spending on his girlfriend while living at home with his parents.
But he worries about the rising prices he’s seen during his teen years as he’s emerged into an economy experiencing decades-high inflation. For his first election, he said he will be voting for former President Donald Trump with those higher costs and concerns about the wider economy in mind.
“Trump can run America like a business and Kamala would run it as a classroom,” Tasker said. “Trump would care about how Americans can get the most money, how we can care for the most people, and keep America first.”
Then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign event at the Central Wisconsin Convention and Expo Center in Rothschild, WI on April 2, 2016.Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty Images fileYoung men like Tasker, seen as a solidly Democratic group less than two decades ago, have been shifting further to the right politically as their economic outlook has been on a downward trajectory, especially among those without a college degree, said pollsters and social scientists. While the economy has been a top issue for many voters, it’s been a particularly salient one for young men and one tied into their wider cultural ideals about their place in society and wanting to be a provider for their families.
“The economic and employment picture for younger men without college degrees is significantly worse than previous generations,” said Dan Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute, whose research has focused on young adults. “These sort of traditional norms around masculinity and what it means to be a man and a husband are wrapped up in economic success, and that makes it really, really challenging when their economic outlook is not as bright.”
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