Thread by @ptcherneva

🧵The ballot measures last night say a few things about voters’ feelings about the economy.
Here is how they played out.

PAID SICK LEAVE
All three measures requiring employers to provide paid sick leave PASSED (AK, MO, NE)
All 3 states went to Trump

1/x

MINIMUM WAGES and TIPPED Worker Wages
4 states passed measures to increase the minimum wage (AK, MO, NE, AZ)
1 state rejected a measure to erode tipped worker wages (AZ).
All 5 states went to Trump
2/x

CA & MA: The 2 states where the proposed increases in the min wage/tipped worker wage FAILED

*(a note on AZ Prop 138 above; very convoluted framing but it basically would've made it more difficult for tipped worker wages to keep up w/ increases in the state minimum wage)

3/x

INFRASTRUCTURE and CLIMATE
In CA measures to issue bonds for school facilities (prop 2) water & wildfire protection, climate risks (prop 4): PASSED

CA measure to lower the vote needed to approve bonds for housing/infrastr (frm current 2/3rd majority to 55%) (prop 5): FAILED

4/x

HEALTH
CA also PASSED a measure regulating how Federal money from drug reduction programs is spent. Voters want it to go directly to patient care.

5/x

SCHOOL CHOICE
FAILED in the 3 states that introduced measures to amend the state constitutions and allow state money to go to private schools (KY, CO, NE).

All voted Trump.

6/x

PRISON LABOR
In CA measure banning forced servitude (using prison labor as punishment): FAILED.

Prop 6 would have made prison labor voluntary and would have prioritized rehabilitation.

7/x

OTHER
All but two “right-to-abortion” measures PASSED (AZ, CO, MD, MO, MT, NE, NV).
Only in SD and FL the measure FAILED

All “citizenship requirement to vote” measures won (IA, ID, KY, MO, NC, NV, OK, SC, WI)

8/x

While the sample size is small, red states voted for pro-worker policies: wage increases and paid sick leave. CA and MA didn’t, though in CA voters supported measures to strengthen healthcare, schools, infrastructure.

Red states also rejected vouchers for private schools.
9/x

Dems talked about housing & child support, but not nearly enough about the minimum wage, paid family or sick leave
When people say that inflation is their top concern, they're also saying that their jobs and paychecks aren’t allowing them to stay afloat.
10/x

We had the fastest recovery in postwar history and an unprecedented level of government spending.
But as I have said before, as far as working families are concerned, we have pretty much returned the economy to its pre-COVID status quo. And that wasn't pretty.

11/x

Economists fed this complacency with talk about a booming economy and 'full employment' (which it wasn't), celebrating the increases in real wages at the bottom of the distribution, without sounding the alarm that they are not enough to keep up.

12/x

Growth is not enough. That much should have been obvious long ago. Structural economic issues and insecurity still shape voters' lives and continue to shape every dimension of politics. The ballot measures tell us to some degree how voters feel about their standard of living.

13

correction to tweet 6/x:
2 of the 3 states that rejected SCHOOL CHOICE voted Trump (KY, NE). The other state CO voted Harris