Partisan Biases among the Unemployed

Abstract

Unemployed people are relatively rarely studied in political science. Yet, with their economic significance and centrality to many political debates, they can provide insight on many questions, including just how far partisan biases – where opinions and even factual perceptions follow what reflects well on their holder's preferred political party – extend. The economic and emotional costs of joblessness make its evaluation an unlikely seeming case for partisan effects. Surveys in the United States and Great Britain nevertheless show that partisan alignment predicts unemployed individuals' evaluation of their economic situation: unemployed individuals identifying with parties represented in the national executive report more positively on their household finances (and on the national economic situation) than do non-partisans, while those identifying with the opposition report more negatively. These effects are especially substantial among people interested in politics. Even something as personal and affectively intense as unemployment is viewed through a partisan scrim.