GD POLITICS Podcast: "Which Party Will Win America’s Workers?"

Host: Galen Druke
Guest: John Lettieri, Economic Innovation Group
Release Date: September 29, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode tackles the evolving question of which party—Democrats or Republicans—can credibly claim to represent America’s workers. Host Galen Druke and guest John Lettieri discuss recent polling, myths about worker prosperity, partisan narratives, the disconnection between signature policies and workers’ actual priorities, and the cross-pressures shaping policy debates from affordability and unions to trade and the future impact of AI. The conversation blends rigorous data analysis, political context, and lively debate about the real state of American workers and what they want from policymakers.

Main Themes & Discussion Points

1. The Current "Jump Ball": Who Represents America’s Workers?

• Defining “American Workers” ([02:12]):

  • Anyone employed or actively looking for work, both full and part-time, ages 24–55 are considered "prime-age" with very high participation rates.
  • Roughly 160 million Americans fall under this definition.

• Neither Party Owns the Mantle ([02:58]):

  • Neither Democrats nor Republicans have a clear, unchallenged claim as “the party of working people.”
  • Survey evidence shows voters are deeply split on which side serves workers’ interests.

  "I think this is one of the big jump balls of American politics right now... neither one has really successfully claimed it."
  — John Lettieri [02:58]

• Realignment & Narratives ([03:30]):

  • The Republican Party is actively seeking to build a multiracial working class coalition, breaking with past assumptions.
  • Each party has its own story:
    • Left: Blames corporations, union-busting, greedy elites.
    • Right: Points to overregulation, mass migration, and free trade as culprits.

  "You have...a Republican Party dominated by Trump that is explicitly making a play for the party of workers, right, even making a play for organized labor in a way that has never been true in the modern era."
  — John Lettieri [07:01]

• Incoherence or Diversity? ([05:13] & [07:01]):

  • Both parties display internal contradictions and competing ideological strains.
  • The right’s fusion of trade protectionism, anti-immigration, and standard GOP tax cuts isn’t cohesive, nor is the left’s blend of socialism, supply-side liberalism, and centrist moderation.

2. Challenging the Dominant Worker Narrative

• The Supposed Decline in Worker Well-being: A Myth? ([09:07]):

  • The assumption that American workers are more precarious, less satisfied, and under greater strain than in the past is not supported by long-term data.
  • Workers today:
    • Have fewer second jobs and side hustles.
    • Job-hop less than in previous decades.
    • Report consistent, high job satisfaction.
    • Are less entrepreneurial than in the past.

  "A lot of the disaster kind of motif...that the free trade era...has hollowed out the American worker and made them more precarious. Not only does it not track with the economic reality, it actually conflicts with what workers themselves are saying."
  — John Lettieri [09:07]

• Wages: Have They Really Stagnated for 50 Years? ([12:05]):

  • The claim that wages have been flat for five decades unites right- and left-wing populists but relies on flawed methodology.
  • Proper inflation adjustments show strong, broad-based wage growth since the 1990s.
  • Wage stagnation was serious from the 1970s to early 1990s, but growth resumed with NAFTA and continued globalization.

  "Wages are way higher today than they were in the early 1990s. That's the first point."
  — John Lettieri [12:05]

• Disconnection Between Productivity and Wages ([12:05]):

  • Worker incomes have not kept full pace with productivity growth, which is a legitimate problem—but the decline is far less dire than widely believed.
  • Both wage growth and missed potential for greater gains are real.

3. What Workers Actually Want: Affordability, Not Tariffs

• Cost of Living Is the Top Priority ([27:38], [32:32]):

  • When offered a menu of policy options, workers overwhelmingly name the cost of living—especially housing and everyday goods—as their main concern.
  • Tariffs and trade protectionism, the key worker-focused plank of recent GOP policy, rank last—even among Trump supporters.

  "We tried to get at that tension by asking, if you could just pick one issue for policymakers to prioritize to make life better for workers, what would it be?... The least popular answer is tariffs."
  — John Lettieri [00:00]

  "If you combine cost of everyday goods and cost of housing, cost of living is far and away the top response."
  — [32:32]

• Gap Between Political Message and Policy Impact ([29:27]):

  • While Republicans enjoy relatively more trust from voters on issues like trade and immigration, satisfaction plummets once policies are enacted, especially when those policies affect affordability.

  "Trump gets the worst marks of any area of the presidency we asked about on inflation and cost of living...if he's failing on inflation, that's going to be what determines his governing success."
  — John Lettieri [29:27]

• Unions: Popular in Theory, Tepid in Practice ([34:54]):

  • Abstract support for unions is positive, but few workers actually want to join one.
  • Unionization rates, especially in the private sector, are at historic lows and declining.

4. How Real Is Worker Stratification?

• Wage Gains Across the Spectrum, Not Just at the Top ([16:44], [18:50]):

  • Breaking the data down by income decile shows that low-paid workers recently saw large gains, especially post-COVID.
  • The challenge remains the recent, sharp increase in costs, which especially hurt lower-income families.

  "Workers at the 90th percentile have done very well. But right behind them...are workers at the 10th percentile."
  — John Lettieri [16:44]

  "The runaway cost of living and inflation have really eaten into the gains that workers would have otherwise had."
  — [18:50]

5. Why the Doom & Gloom? Perception vs. Reality

• Grievance Sells ([22:10]):

  • Politicians and media amplify narratives of worker victimhood because it mobilizes voters.
  • People consistently say they’re doing fine personally but believe other workers (and the economy overall) are struggling.

  "No one's ever gone out of business in politics avoiding grievance, right? Grievance sells very well on the campaign trail..."
  — John Lettieri [22:10]

• Divided Perceptions ([24:20], [25:30]):

  • Americans typically view their own lives positively but are pessimistic about the country’s prospects as a whole.

  “When you ask them about themselves, pretty consistently they say, I'm doing well. When you ask them about workers in general, they say much more pessimistic things.”
  — John Lettieri [22:10]

• Affordability as the Real Pain Point ([27:38]):

  • Housing and childcare costs—now a much larger share of income than in past decades—raise anxiety and dissatisfaction despite real income growth.

6. Crafting a Winning Agenda for Workers

• Key Platform Takeaways ([35:58]):

  • Focus on making life more affordable, especially by addressing housing supply and high costs.
  • Avoid centering the narrative on tariffs; not supported by worker sentiment and seen as potentially harmful.
  • Use federal power to push for more housing—an area where there may be rare bipartisan momentum.

  "I would hammer affordability top to bottom…if I were to do that, I know from the survey data now that I would not make trade or tariffs a centerpiece because workers simply do not believe that's going to make the situation better."
  — John Lettieri [35:58]

  "On things like housing, there's a tremendous role for policy to play because housing is a supply driven issue first and foremost...a supply oriented housing agenda would meet workers exactly where they are..."
  — [37:10]

• Policy Details & Political Feasibility ([37:10], [38:13]):

  • Both Democrats and Republicans are aware of the housing crisis and are proposing more aggressive federal actions.
  • Example: A bipartisan housing bill advanced by Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott signals a rare alliance.

7. Future Trends: Dynamism, AI, and Worker Disruption

• AI and the American Worker ([44:29]):

  • Research shows jobs “most exposed” to AI currently have the lowest unemployment, and there’s little evidence of broad displacement thus far.
  • The bigger danger might be too little disruption—AI’s productivity promise, if realized, could benefit workers as technological changes have historically done.

  "The most AI exposed jobs have the lowest unemployment rate in the labor market, meaning there is an invisible impact so far of AI job disruption."
  — John Lettieri [44:29]

  "I think the biggest risk to workers is that AI is not going to be disruptive...that it doesn't end up disrupting very much at all. And we don't get the upside of that disruption."
  — [44:29]

• Growth, Stability, and Happiness ([48:36]–[54:24]):

  • Some argue for the virtues of static prosperity (using Japan or Nordic countries as models), but Lettieri argues American dynamism historically created both material well-being and societal opportunity.
  • Longing for stability may be misplaced; past eras of prosperity were, in reality, highly disruptive and dynamic.

  "People are instinctually afraid of change...when what they should actually be worried about is too little change and our economy has been too little changeful."
  — John Lettieri [52:00]

  "I think this is one of those cross partisan, cross ideological issues that has pulled a pretty broad range of stakeholders, organizations, politicians under the same umbrella."
  — [41:12]

• Beyond the Economy: Social Well-being ([54:24]):

  • Lettieri links the decline in family formation and youth-focused federal spending to a broader sense that the social compact needs rebalancing.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Limit of Political Narratives:

  "No one's ever gone out of business in politics avoiding grievance."
  — John Lettieri [22:10]

• On the Real Top Issue:

  "If you combine cost of everyday goods and cost of housing, cost of living is far and away the top response."
  — John Lettieri [00:00], [32:32]

• On Tariffs:

  "Tariffs...rank not just the lowest among all workers, but also the lowest among workers who supported Trump."
  — [00:00]

• On Dynamism:

  "People long for this period that they think was somehow stable. It was not stable. It was highly dynamic, highly disruptive, and produced great outcomes."
  — John Lettieri [52:00]

Key Timestamps

• [00:00] — Workers overwhelmingly prioritize cost of living over tariffs
• [02:12] — Defining American workers
• [07:01] — Both parties’ incoherence, new GOP “working class” appeal
• [09:07] — Myths vs. data: workers’ actual resilience and satisfaction
• [12:05] — Wages have grown, not stagnated, since the early ‘90s
• [16:44] — Wage gains not limited to the top; low-end workers have also seen progress
• [27:38] — Housing and affordability now dominate worker concerns
• [29:27] — Republicans’ “five alarm fire” on cost of living and inflation in polling
• [32:32] — Workers reject tariffs and unions as solutions
• [35:58] — What a winning worker platform would look like
• [44:29] — So far, AI is not visibly displacing workers; too little change may be riskier
• [52:00] — The importance and historical value of economic dynamism
• [54:24] — The connection between prosperity, happiness, and family formation

Conclusion

The competition to be the "party of workers" remains wide open, with neither side offering a coherent or clearly popular platform. Actual worker priorities, especially affordability and housing, are often mismatched with headline policies like tariffs or union support. Polling shows workers want pragmatic solutions, not ideological gestures, and are keenly focused on the real, personal impact of rising costs more than grand narratives about trade or labor. The conversation ultimately suggests that winning over America's workers—and matching policy to their lived reality—is both the central political fault line and a daunting, unresolved challenge for both parties in the coming years.