The Political Differences of the Creative, Service, and Working Classes

Class remans a signature axis of American life. Writing here last week, I outlined the great “class inversion” of American politics as the locations of the working class have turned red, while the locations of the more advantaged creative class trend blue. But the geography of the service class—which is the largest class, comprising more than 45 percent of American workers—remains up for grabs.

This week, I take a look at the political attitudes of these three major classes. My colleague at the University of Toronto, Patrick Adler, used recent data from panels of the General Social Survey (GSS), a broad survey of America’s attitudes on a wide range of issues. He compared the attitudes of these three classes on issues such as immigration, women’s rights, gay rights, abortion, and unionization. The results show that the service class lines up more closely with the creative class on some issues and with the working class on others.