Economic crisis, the Democrats and US election

Trump will not solve the economic crisis in the US (Photo: Liam Enea, CC BY SA 2.0)

Trump sold the lie that he’d “Make America Great Again” and bring about a “golden age”. The Democrats said America was already great—after failing to improve the lives of the working class.

Trump harnesses a real feeling of resentment, of being left behind, forgotten and ridiculed.

Working class people are suffering and desperate for change in the United States. A glance at the US economy shows how millions of people are suffering.

An AP poll showed that eight in ten voters wanted at least a “substantial change” in how the country is run—including one quarter who said they want “total upheaval”. 

Government assistance has faded, demand for foodbanks has surged, food insecurity sky-rocketed and homelessness is at a record high.

The number of people who have difficulty paying for basic household expenses has increased from 32 percent in 2020 to 39 percent in 2024.

That’s now 130 million people out of the total US population of 330 million. Of all US adults, 60 percent have seen their disposable income decline in the last year. And 58 percent live pay cheque to pay cheque. In comparison, 31 percent of British people say they do.

And there are huge long standing structural costs to US life that cause significant problems for working people.

Take healthcare. The privatised US healthcare system means that an essential service remains a huge expense for many Americans.

Just over half of US adults say it’s hard to afford healthcare, with nearly two in five saying they put off or skipped treatment entirely because of cost.

People without health insurance are often faced with a choice between bankruptcy and death.

And the number of people struggling for food is soaring, reaching record highs in 2024. Charities point to high food prices, the gradual disappearance of pandemic-era aid and unaffordable housing.

Nearly 44 million people are living in households where they struggle to get the food they need because they lack money and resources.

That includes 13 million children according to the last report by the US Department of Agriculture. And record levels of homelessness unsurprisingly come alongside high eviction rates and a crisis in affordable housing.

The number of renters who spend more than 30 percent of income on rent and utilities was 22.4 million in 2022, another all-time high. When it comes to childcare, parents are forking out tens of thousands of dollars a year.

In response to hardship, people are ramping up credit card debt with more than a third of people saying they have more credit card debt than in emergency savings. In the last three months of 2023, credit card debt reached a 22 year high of over £1 trillion.

Currently 21 million people are behind on utility bill payments and 25 million are behind on credit card or personal loan payments. These are the highest numbers since the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Inequality has escalated out of control in the US since politicians introduced neoliberal policies in the 1980s.

Yet the income of CEOs in the largest US firms rose by 1,460 percent between 1978 and 2021. The average worker’s pay grew during the same period by only 18.1 percent. To give a sense of the scale, as of 2021, the average CEO got 399 times more than the average worker.

The reality is that the US economy isn’t working for ordinary people—and the Democrats have failed to do anything more than paper over the cracks in the last four years.

The Biden-Harris administration was marked by the state having a prominent role in directing investment in the form of tax incentives, direct subsidies and tariffs to encourage production. But what it did was a far cry from its progressive promises.

It passed bills such as the American Rescue Plan in 2021, which sent out £1,100 in stimulus cheques to most Americans.

It also expanded unemployment insurance, child credit and rental assistance. But it was temporary—a pop-up safety net—with provisions expiring at the end of the pandemic, leaving the deep inequalities unchanged and the crisis unaddressed.

Then there was the Infrastructure of Jobs Act in 2021 that allocated £1 trillion for transportation and infrastructure projects.

The Democrat’s flagship Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 included investments in green energy, including £300 billion in climate spending. But that funding was spread out over a decade.

Most of it was in tax credits and subsidies to big businesses to incentivise private investment in clean energy and green manufacturing.

This is due to its policies being aimed at shoring up the stability of US capitalism, with the US state taking a more active role in bankrolling its corporations to compete globally.

There’s huge class anger in US society. But the Democrats can’t point it to the real enemy—the capitalist class—as this is who they represent.

The result is what we saw on Tuesday—Trump’s anti-establishment fakery and anti-migrant ideas sweeping through.