Bob Kuttner’s suggestion to John Edwards

Bob Kuttner’s latest editorial in the Boston Globe raises an interesting point. While applauding the fact that John Edwards is striving to put economic issues and the plight of the poor in America front and center on the political map, Kuttner asks whether Edwards should be focusing instead on working Middle Class Americans as opposed to the working poor.

He notes: “Today there are 37 million poor people in America — out of just under 300 million. Back when Franklin Roosevelt delivered his famous second inaugural address in 1937, declaring “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished,” a third of Americans were indeed poor, and another third had good reason to fear poverty. The vulnerability of the non-poor was a major issue that FDR brilliantly energized.

Today, with only 12 percent of Americans officially poor, the challenge of leadership is more complex. Yet four Americans in five have had basically stagnant living standards since the mid-1970s. That’s because three decades of economic growth have gone almost entirely to the top, not merely the top 20 percent but mainly the top 1 percent.”

The political advantage of focusing on issues affecting the Middle Class make sense from a strictly political, if not moral perspective.

According to Kuttner: “It’s courageous of Edwards to tackle poverty. But if he wants to become a presidential contender by re-introducing unspoken realities of class to American political discourse, there is a far larger class of people taking an economic bath. It’s four Americans out of five. The real ‘Two Americas’ are not the poor and everyone else, but the mega-rich and everyone else.“

His thinking is that you grab the attention of the American people by going appealing to the Middle Class, not the working poor or non-working poor. Then, you can forge a coalition of the Middle Class and low-income workers by highlighting their common interests and challenges. For example, Middle and low-income individuals have experienced relatively flat wage growth compared to top earners in recent years due to a number of factors, including an increase in global trade, falling levels of union membership and even lowered taxes on capital. The end result of this, along with demographic trends, has led to growing income inequality.

So the question ultimately becomes: Since more Americans are Middle Class as compared to the number of people at or below the poverty line, is it better as Kuttner seems to imply for economic populist candidates like Edwards to focus on their interests? Or will Middle Class Americans be moved to vote for a politician that demonstrates his commitment to the economically disenfranchised?