2024 US Presidential Election

[sc94597]

sundin13 said:

sc94597 said:

When it comes to the presidential election things are definitely nationalized, but we've seen in this iteration (and in the midterms) that senate, governor, and even house races are still about local and state politics. That's why swing-state senators did a lot better than Kamala did (or Biden would have) as an example. 

Utah and Alaska are pretty developed states. Only about .06 points and .04 points less developed than New York and California respectively on HDI. (.931 for Alaska and Utah vs. .937 for New York and .935 for California)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index_score

Overall, there doesn't seem to be a positive correlation between HDI and Gini coefficients. If anything, it is a slight negative correlation (higher HDI => lower Gini Coefficients.) 

And similar is visible with GDP per Capita vs. Gini. 

So being "financially developed" can't be the explanation because the most financial developed countries tend to be more egalitarian, not less. 

I think these macroeconomic indicators have a lagging effect when it comes to perceptions. People are thinking about the last few years. So that is why despite inflation rates and Gini Coefficients peaking in 2021-2022 people are backlashing now. The problem is that Democrats can't be reacting from election to election. They need long-term plans of how they want to transform American society. Especially as the ostensibly "left-wing" party. Republicans have long-term plans through the likes of the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation. Democrats, on the other-hand, are very reactive due to a few decades of being institutionally conservative (preserving of American institutions) and have been stuck in a strategy of "triangulation" since Bill Clinton made it work in the 90's. But it's no longer the 90's. They need to have a positive vision for Americans, push as hard as possible to achieve it, and don't flip flop reactively like they have been. They also need to use examples of how they bettered states and localities as models for what they want to do for the nation as a whole. 

Eh, I think that doesn't really pass the smell test. I mean, you can throw numbers at me all day, but I just don't see how Alaska and NY are all that comparable by basically any eye test. Like, I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but it feels like you are boiling things down way too hard into numbers instead of taking a step back and looking at what you are making the data say. I appreciate how hard you are going with the numbers to back up your posts so I don't want to just brush them off and say "but it feels like you're wrong", but it's hard not to. Like, part of the reason Alaska has high wages for jobs that have lower wages elsewhere is that Alaska sucks most of the time so people don't want to live there, so supply/demand sets minimum wages higher. That isn't something California or NY can really replicate. 

So I can't really get behind the idea that income disparity can really be compared between states in a very meaningful way, and I definitely can't get behind the idea that inequality is something that blue states should necessarily seek to remove. I think it is far more complicated than that. An economy can still do well for it's lowest earners while being inequal and vice versa. I don't think California should necessarily seek to equality-max, because I feel the quickest way to do that would be to fundamentally restructure its economy in a way which kills high income jobs (by design). What it should seek to do imo is leverage those high income earners to make life better for low income earners. 

That is all good and all, but when you suggest two political-economies can't be compared, especially on basic, generalized macroeconomic metrics like income distributions typically you have to consider a reason why they can't be compared. Why are we able to compare New York (or the U.S) to Finland (and yes we do make these comparisons all the time) on say education but not to Alaska or Utah on income distribution? 

Alaska isn't more egalitarian because rich people don't want to live there. It is famously a getaway for a specific type of rich person. You could argue poor people don't want to live there, but again there are plenty of poor people too who have lived there for generations. 

Or on the other-hand, it could be that things like the Alaska permanent fund, and other social ownership policies (largely relating to natural resources) do have an effect on income distributions. In the case of Utah, there is a de-facto two-layer welfare state in the form of the actual state insurances + mormon church, and for years they had a housing first policy for houselessness. 

And yes, maxing out equality at any other cost isn't a good idea, but: 

1. Other developed countries (and states) have shown us that you can be a lot more equal than New York and California are and still have high GDPs/HDIs and better off working classes. This includes states and cou tries with a variety of economies, natural resources, and populations. 

2. The Democratic Party is ostensibly the party that argues for egalitarianism and egalitarian income/wealth policies. 

3. Your point that these can still be good places for the poor to live despite the high level of inequality has fewer exemplars and I am not convinced that the working class is better off in New York, as an example, than neighboring states that are less unequal. Often this is directly because of policy too.

As an example, New York has had a famously anemic unemployment insurance benefit compared to its neighbors , despite having areas with a much, much higher cost of living.* Why is the maximum benefit in New York less than that in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania? Why is California's less than that found in Wyoming, Kentucky, and Texas? 

The actual answer to all of this is that California and New York have historically been economically conservative states compared to many other states (all but the deep south really.). When the GOP shifted to a hard cultural conservative stance over the 80's-00's these states also shifted more heavily Democratic, but many of their conservative economic policies weren't changed as Democrats shared fiscal conservatives with the GOP. The fiscal conservatives in the Democratic party undermine the more active, change-oriented parts of that party limiting what economic issues can be addressed and how.

*I noticed this when my father was getting a (slightly) smaller unemployment benefit in New York than I was in Pennsylvania during Covid, despite him making 1.5 as much (before becoming unemployed) as I did at the time, meanwhile his cost of living was double.

Edit: Just looked the 2024 number up, Pennsylvania's max unemployment benefit is $604 per week vs. New York's of $504 per week and California's of $450 per week.

Last edited by sc94597 - 1 day ago