Economic concerns and growing disenchantment with both parties is draining support for Trump among Gen Z young men, a key bloc of support during the 2024 election
Male Gen Z voters are breaking with Donald Trump and the Republican party at large, recent polls show, less than a year after this same cohort defied convention and made a surprise shift right, helping Trump win the 2024 election.
Taken with wider polling suggesting Democrats will lead in the midterms, the findings on young men spell serious trouble for the Republican Party in 2026.
Younger Gen Z men, those born between 2002 and 2007, may be even more anti-Trump, according to October research from YouGov and the Young Men’s Research Project, a potential sign that their time living through the social upheavals of the Covid pandemic and not being political aware during the first Trump administration may be shaping their experience.
the problem with ‘fair wage’ is ‘what things cost’ is subjective measure.
i know people who make half what i make who have more than enough, and people who make 3x what I mean who feel they are struggling because they don’t own a 3 million dollar house.
the objective facts of economics don’t have much weight when it comes to people subjective perception of their ‘needs’. and human psychology tends to adapt to whatever baseline is available. this is why the CEO making 150million doesn’t think they are wealthy, and will tell you how they are underpaid. it’s also established relative to your social peers.
I never felt that I was ‘poor’ my entire life until I went to college and was informed I was poor, because objectively, I was. But since I grew up in a town in the bottom half of the economic ladder I was never exposed to the concept of wealth.
We’re all familiar with the tropes about finding happiness in poverty but “living wage” is an actual thing that can be calculated.
https://livingwage.mit.edu/
In my area, one of the cheaper ones in the nation, you need to make about $22/hr as a single person to cover food/rent/utilities/insurance/etc.
If you want to debate the merits of “bagging groceries” as a long term job or how much one needs to have to be happy that’s a different discussion but it’s pretty clear what people need to be paid in order to survive.
my local city subreddit has that calculator posted on like a monthly basis. and 90% of the responses are how the basic living wage it cites is a poverty wage. of course, it’s not.
people aren’t rational. someone making 22/hr may objectively be able to meet basic needs, but it doesn’t mean they are living ‘well’. as well is entirely subjective to one’s perceived needs. and frankly, as someone who lives below my means for decades in order to establish financial stability… I dont’ really meet many people who share my attitude outside of the FIRE types. My perception of ‘need’ is far less than the vast majority of my peers. For example I don’t need luxury products to feel my life is ‘good’. many of my peers debt-spend rather than living without them and their version of a ‘living wage’ is a top 1-2% income.
it also doesn’t account for other factors, like family wealth. 22/hr is a much different wage to someone who has 50K in student loan debt, than to someone who has a 500K trust fund.