Jobs boom favors Democratic counties, not Trump strongholds
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
MONACA, Pennsylvania (AP) — The United States is on pace to add about 2.6 million jobs this year under President Donald Trump's watch. Yet the bulk of the hiring has occurred in bastions of Democratic voters rather than in the Republican counties that put Trump in the White House.
On average for the year-ended this May, 58.5 percent of the job gains were in counties that backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to an Associated Press analysis of monthly government jobs data by county.
Despite an otherwise robust national economy, the analysis shows that a striking number of Trump counties are losing jobs. The AP found that 35.4 percent of Trump counties have shed jobs in the past year, compared with just 19.2 percent of Clinton counties.
The jobs data shows an economy that is as fractured as the political landscape ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. As more money pools in such corporate hubs as Houston, San Francisco or Seattle, prosperity spills over less and less to smaller towns and cities in America's interior. That would seem to undercut what Trump sees as a central accomplishment of his administration — job creation for middle class and blue-collar workers in towns far removed from bustling urban centers.
Job growth in Trump's economy is still concentrated in the same general places as it was toward the end of Barack Obama's presidency — when roughly 58.7 percent of the average annual job gains were in Democratic counties.
Yet the lack of transformative job growth in Trump areas hasn't seemed to erode his support among Republicans, while hiring in Democratic areas have done little to improve his standing with those voters. For Trump's core supporters, cultural issues such as gun rights, immigration and loyalty to the president have become dominant priorities.
Trump has pointed with pride at a strengthening national economy in hopes that voters will reward the Republican Party by preserving its majorities in the House and Senate this year. The government reported the fastest quarterly economic growth since 2014 and the unemployment rate is a healthy 3.9 percent. At a Pennsylvania rally on Thursday, the president declared, "Our economy is soaring. Our jobs are booming."
But other issues preoccupy the minds of the party faithful in Trump strongholds such as Beaver County, Pennsylvania, northwest of Pittsburgh.
Chip Kohser, the county Republican chairman and the bristle-bearded founder of a farm share company, said his party members are rallying around their staunch opposition to gun control.
"Our No. 1 motivating factor," he said, "is Second Amendment issues."
Kohser, 41, drives a white pickup truck, smokes cigars and views America as being jaggedly splintered along ideological lines that make it hard to find common ground. Democratic calls for stricter gun control in the aftermath of mass shootings, he said, are fueling more zeal among his Republican volunteers than are the $1.5 trillion in tax cuts that Trump signed into law last year.
Since May 2017, Beaver County has lost 191 jobs. With the warmer summer weather, hiring is now on an upswing. But employers have fewer job applicants available as the labor force has shrunk by roughly 1,000 workers in the past 12 months, the result of decades of population loss that hit former steel towns such as Aliquippa, Beaver Falls and Midland.
The tax cuts haven't stopped the outflow of people. Chatting over eggs, bacon and home fries, Kohser estimated that the tax cuts have added perhaps $1,200 to his annual household income and roughly the same to many others in the area — not likely enough on its own to rejuvenate the local economy.
The United States is full of places like Beaver County. They are areas where the currently robust national economy and job market obscure long-standing woes that generations of politicians have struggled to reverse. There are the long-shuttered factories, stagnant incomes and the departure of college-educated workers to cities and surrounding suburbs.
Many of those forgotten men and women might cheer the president for slapping tariffs on imported goods to defend U.S. factory jobs or his vow to build a wall on the Mexican border to block illegal immigration. But for struggling communities waiting for jobs to be restored, Trump's tax cuts — which were skewed toward corporations and wealthy individuals — have yet to deliver.
During the past year, the healthiest job gains have been in counties containing such vibrant cities as Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Seattle, all of them places that have favored Democrats.
Texas, which Trump won handily, reflects the geographic split in the economy. Within that state, Clinton — not Trump — won the counties that have accounted for bulk of that state's job growth.
Though public opinion surveys suggest that the economy gives an advantage to Trump and the Republicans, the economy no longer packs as big a punch with the electorate.
When the Pew Research Center asked voters in June to identify the nation's most pressing issue, more of them chose immigration, race, political gridlock or Trump himself than the economy. The proportion of people who said the economy was their top priority fell to its lowest level in more than eight years.
Sixty percent of Americans told Pew that they see their midterm vote as an act of either supporting the president (26 percent) or opposing him (34 percent). That is the highest combined number since Pew began asking such a question in 2006.
And 68 percent said that control of Congress would influence how they vote, the highest level in two decades.
Despite greater income inequality, separate research suggests the economy isn't the only source of America's growing cultural divide.
Since the 1970s, Americans have also moved further apart on matters of "political ideology," according to research published in June by University of Chicago economists Marianne Bertrand and Emir Kamenica. Their work found that conservatives and liberals have become more sharply split on such issues as confidence in the government and social institutions, religious participation and stances on marriage, sex and abortion.
In Pennsylvania, many Democrats see the choices made by Trump as putting democracy itself at risk. Their fears stem in part from his administration's initial policy of separating refugee children from their parents and his seemingly deferential relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose nation interfered in the 2016 election, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.
"What I'm hearing daily is fear amongst people as to whether their democracy is slipping away from them," said Nancy Mills, the Pennsylvania Democratic chairwoman. "I'm really hearing that more than anything else."
She then added, "This situation at the border was really a wake-up call and frightening."
Trump has described his crackdown on undocumented immigrants, refugees and his efforts to limit legal immigration as positive for the country. Yet the economic growth he promised would revitalize Beaver County may depend on its ability to attract immigrants as it did a century ago when the steel mills brought Germans, Italians and Eastern Europeans workers to the area.
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Donald Trump's economy is failing his voting base.
Do they care?
lol
The average Trump voter is eager to be bamboozled.
His voting base already have jobs. They are trying to help the rest get a clue. Looks like they are succeeding. Nice to see someone trying to build the constituent base by getting people jobs instead of government handouts and getting illegals to vote for a change. LMAO! BTW That's REAL CHANGE!
Twice as many Trump counties have lost jobs since he took office than in counties that voted for Clinton.
MAGA , Trumpsters !
Cool then all those clinton votin SOB's should vote for Trump this time but they won't.
They're way too stupid for their own good.
Funny. Last jobs report I saw has the country at lowest unemployment for everyone in decades and lowest unemployment among minorities for even longer.
This article is not about illegal voting.
To the moderators - I am not monitoring it anymore.
Sorry John. I just can't seem to get these guys to stay on topic, but I feel compelled to answer direct questions and responses to me. I will post an article about the Batshit crazy bill the Democrats are trying to pass in a new seed.
it's allright. I stopped paying attention to this seed.
Praise Jesus and pass the potato salad .....
Agreed, JR … but the lies must be either deleted or debunked!
Or deflected? LOL! How about addressing that bill? Bills don't lie Amac.
I did address it! You just thought you had a gotcha …
2.1.16 A. Macarthur
No you didn't address the bill at all. You addressed some other BS story that I had not even mentioned about an illegal getting elected. I am talking about a bill they are trying to pass to make that lunacy LEGAL. I provided a link to the bill and started a whole other seed about it that you are avoiding and you still have not addressed.
AGAIN I think you are avoiding it ON PURPOSE because YOU SIMPLY HAVE NO WAY TO DEFEND THIS LUNACY!
CHECKMATE?
BTW no other liberal had the balls to post on the seed either, and it's been over 13 hours. I guess you all just hope for that insane mess to go away quietly Huh? Don't speak of it and it will disappear? It must be from the Right cuz Liberals aren't that frigging crazy?
I'm waiting...
I stand corrected. SPLIT PERSONALITY tried to poo poo it and said it would never pass as if that made the whole damn thing less crazy. At least he had the smarts to deflect with a "nothing to see here" type comment. Yep, pay no attention to the frigging lunatics making batshit crazy laws that could destroy the country as we know it!
If you are not monitoring your own seed, doesn't it have to be closed or deleted, like what happens to others that ignore and/or fail to moderate their own seed?
don't complain to me, complain to perrie
Wasn't a complaint, Homeslice, it was a question. And it seems you are monitoring it pretty closely for someone who has thrown in the towel on it.
"Homesllce." That's cute. What should your nickname be? I'm going to go for Thickslab. Do you like it?
lol.
BF has called people "homeslice" , maybe Spike is imitating him.
Please quit plagiarising our fish mod. Thank-you.
and ya wonder why black and hispanic employment is the highest ever in the history of our country? (rhetorical)
do ya think it is an accident? (again rhetorical)
dems have been promising those people jobs for years and years and years.. trump is delivering.
JOBS: and that is how we flip blue to red.
people watched production cease under dem leadership and now they are watching production return under trump = they vote.
that big blue electoral college firewall the left used to love so much? gets more red paint with every job added to the area.
but have no fear, I am sure some of them will vote to go back on welfare... there is no dignity in having a job.
I am concerned.
Apparently you and I are the only people who see that creating jobs in an opponent's stronghold is a great way to invade that stronghold.
I'm not sure what they thought trump meant when he said he would bring jobs TO the black community.
but then again, I'm not sure they actually think at all.
dems are a virus and jobs are the cure.
no need. they have already lost. just sit back and relax.
the snowball is rolling and will not be stopped.
it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger
cheers
"Yet the bulk of the hiring has occurred in bastions of Democratic voters rather than in the Republican counties that put Trump in the White House."
Democrats must be elated !
OOPS !
They ain't !
Even when you "GIVE" them something, they ain't happy !