Unemployed Americans are more likely than others to say they won't vote, Insider polling finds
- Insider found links between employment status and a person's likelihood of planning to vote in 2020.
- People who listed themselves as unemployed and not looking for work were 14% more likely to say they'd opt out of voting than the average respondent in a series of polls conducted by Insider in conjunction with SurveyMonkey from August to October.
- For Americans unemployed and seeking work, 24% said they weren't going to vote, making them 12% more likely to not turn out.
- As unemployment remains high during the pandemic — hovering at about 7.9%, and even higher in some states like New York and Hawaii — this dynamic will be one to watch heading into Election Day.
Employment status is linked to Americans' intention to vote in 2020, a series of polls conducted by Insider in conjunction with SurveyMonkey from August to October found.
This data is based on an aggregation of eight polls with a combined 8,975 respondents conducted on SurveyMonkey Audience from August through early October. Respondents were asked whether they were registered to vote and then subsequently whether they intended to vote in the 2020 election, among other demographic questions. Overall, 12% of respondents indicated they probably or definitely would not vote in the 2020 election.
Factors like education level and age are often the topline items when voter turnout is discussed, with Americans 65 and older constituting the most reliable voting block, and those ages 18 to 24 being the least likely on average to turn out.
But with unemployment remaining high during the coronavirus pandemic — hovering at about 8%, and even higher in some states like New York and Hawaii — the correlation between employment and intention seems notable.
- Twenty-six percent of respondents who listed themselves as not employed and not looking for work said they had no plans to vote, making that group 14 percentage points more likely than overall respondents to not vote.
- For those who said they were unemployed but seeking work — which more closely fits who is counted as unemployed in the nationwide labor-statistics figure — 24% said they weren't going to vote, making them 12 percentage points more likely to say that compared with the average respondent.
- On average, retirees were more likely to say they'd vote than other age groups, and those in the workforce were about on par with what might be expected from the overall respondent poll.
- Americans unable to work because of a disability were 5 percentage points more likely to say they wouldn't vote.
This signals that elected officials deciding on unemployment assistance could be the least accountable to the people those decisions affect the most.
The data indicates how disillusionment might lead to de facto disenfranchisement.
Gallup has maintained a series of surveys on Americans' confidence in institutions, with significant declines hitting a variety of sectors since the early 2000s.
For the group that appeared most likely to stay home — those unemployed and not seeking work — a pervading sense of dropping out of society on multiple levels comes through the data.
The employment paradigm with voter turnout also runs up against one of the prevailing arguments for making Election Day a national holiday, which would allow working people to vote without being financially affected.
SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weight its sample based on race or income.
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