Varieties of White working-class identity: Implications for social attitudes and political preferences
The manner in which working-class Whites in the United States exercise their considerable political power is guided by their views on immigration and race. We argue that this group’s political and social attitudes are rooted largely in their perceptions of their own position in the socioeconomic hierarchy. Our analysis reveals that White working-class identity is far from monolithic—and thus predicts immigration and racial attitudes in complex ways. Our previous qualitative work uncovered three types of identity: Working Class Patriots, who valorize responsibility, embrace national identity, and disparage the poor; Class Conflict Aware Whites, who regard social class as a structural phenomenon and attribute elitist attitudes to the middle and upper classes; and Working Class Connected Whites, who embrace working-class identity, sympathize with the poor, and feel disrespected by the middle and upper classes. This article reports a quantitative confirmation of these identity types in a nationally-representative survey of working-class Whites. We also reproduce associations, seen in our previous research, between class identities and attitudes regarding immigration and race, such that Class Conflict Aware and Working Class Connected Whites are considerably more progressive on immigration and race than are Working Class Patriots. Implications for electoral politics and race relations are discussed.