Demographic analysis of the New York Mayoral election - part two

Class, inequality and the election

Class is, of course, notoriously difficult to define in precise statistical terms and I've made no attempt to do any such thing here. What I've done instead is simple - several possible indicators of class and of inequality used in the same way that the various (and in America legally precise) "racial" catagories were in the previous post, but to a slightly different end. This is an attempt to slowly build up an impression of a single variable, rather than comparing and combing different groups. Again, mistakes are possible and will be corrected as soon as possible.

The first list is of the percentage employed in managerial or professional occupations - an obvious place to start:

55% - Bloomberg 8
41% - Bloomberg 5
33% - Bloomberg 10, Thompson 3
25% - Bloomberg 8, Thompson 10
16% - Bloomberg 3, Thompson, 19

A fairly stark pattern with no exceptions at the top end. The lower end exceptions are two of the districts that were also exceptional in the minorities table, and 38 - also in Queens, also minority-majority and also with a low Black population and a relatively high (about 12%) Asian one.

Some more occupation statistics now, though only for the higher tiers. First, percentage employed in "construction, extraction & maintance occupations":

8% - Bloomberg 9, Thompson 7

And now, percentage employed in "production, transport & material moving occupations":

13% - Bloomberg 9, Thompson 13

Thompson was very strong at the upper end of the latter catagory.

And finally, percentage employed in manual service-sector occupations:

25% - Bloomberg 1, Thompson 20

From which we can conclude that in terms of occupation, it appears that Bloomberg's base was the city's bourgeoisie while Thompson's came from the lowest strata of the proletariat. The "geological" pattern within obviously Working Class occupation groups is hardly surprising, but is interesting and worth noting all the same.

Moving away from occupation statistics now and on to housing. First up, median monthly (gross) rent in 2000... but only at the extremes (between the two things get a little complicated because higher rates of owner-occupation in the outer boroughs scew the figures):

Above $931 - Bloomberg 7
Below $543 - Thompson 8

As no further comment is needed, I'll move swiftly onto tenure...

Over 80% rented - Bloomberg 4, Thompson 18
Under 50% rented - Bloomberg 8, Thompson 3

It's certainly interesting that the difference is sharper at the upper end of the table than the lower. This doesn't just relate to the fact that property prices in Manhatten are too high even for most yuppies, but to the "racial" patterns of the previous post - owner occupation dominates in even the majority Black parts of eastern Queens.

Income brackets are always an interesting way of looking at this sort of election, and so can't be avoided even if their relationship to class is complicated. I've used median household income from 2000:

$65,000 - Bloomberg 5
$49,000 - Bloomberg 8, Thompson 2
$38,000 - Bloomberg 11, Thompson 3
$29,000 - Bloomberg 8, Thompson 10
$17,000 - Thompson 17

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pattern is rather stark. And finally, I'll also add that Thompson won all fifteen districts where over 30% of the population is classified as being in poverty for official purposes.

What can be concluded from all this? The obvious point is that class was a significant factor in this election - perhaps not quite on the same level as "race", but then the two are difficult to fully divide in large American cities. It's an important point to make, despite being obvious, as there's a tendency to downplay the significance of class in American electoral behavior - it is clear that at a municipal level class polarisation is certainly not dead in New York, even if it has played second fiddle to "race" for decades.