Opportunity and Fairness: Conversations with Swing Voters

Should “economic fairness” be the dominant frame of this election? While a fairness message may work with liberals, our in-depth look at moderate and Independent voters reveals significant limitations with that approach.

In January and February 2012, we conducted focus groups with swing voters in Richmond, Virginia and Denver, Colorado, to better understand their perspectives on the economy.^* We found that while fairness is a value that does matter to these voters, the term’s political meaning remains vague, and it fails to address their deepest economic concerns about America’s and their kids’ future. In short, in their minds fairness does not equal jobs, growth, or economic success. An opportunity framework, however, resonates far more deeply, and appears to offer an optimal appeal to these swing voters.

In this report, we answer two questions:

1. What are the limitations of a fairness argument with swing voters?
2. What is an alternative framework that appeals to the center?

Pete Brodnitz of Benenson Strategy Group conducted two sets of two focus groups for Third Way, the first in Richmond, Virginia, on January 19, 2012, and the second in Denver, Colorado, on February 22, 2012. Participants were self-described Independents or weak Democrats who voted equally for both parties or slightly more for one party than another. All participants identified as moderate or conservative.

The Limitations of a Fairness Argument

Fairness has appeal, but swing voters don’t define it in the same way as policymakers of either party.

To be sure, fairness is an American value that resonates with some voters. People we spoke to support the abstract concept of fairness. Indeed, fairness is in our DNA—equality before the law, justice is blind, and a level playing field—much like freedom. But despite the abstract appeal of fairness, the swing voters in our research could not agree on how to promote that basic concept in American society. Throughout the course of our conversations, we discovered something surprising: no clear and consistent definition of fairness emerged, and, to the degree one did, it focused on correcting what they saw as inappropriate Congressional behavior. Among our participants, fairness certainly did not equate to jobs, growth, or economic success.

“[The key] is who gets to make the definition of fair.”

When asked to define fairness in the context of the economy, our focus group participants did not have a clear idea of what it meant. Some said “economic fairness” meant “equal pay for men and women,” and others linked the term to day-to-day finances, saying it meant “the ability to afford things we need.” When asked about unfairness in the economy, some talked about the cost of living, saying “prices are going up, but wages aren’t.” In short, there was significant confusion over what economic fairness meant and a sense that the term “fair” means different things to different people—and that each side in politics has its own definition of the concept.

Although many Democrats have been utilizing fairness as their major theme in recent months, when asked what Democrats mean when they say “fairness,” one woman in Denver captured the sentiment of the group when she said “I have no idea.” Asked what Republicans mean by the same term, participants thought it signified tax cuts for the wealthy. One participant, critical of the debt ceiling negotiations, said “Each side had their own idea of what was fair, and they could not agree.” This idea persisted—that “fair” is only fair to one side or group of people—there is no definition we hold in common.

“Have you ever heard of a poor Congressman?”

If there was a common theme that rose to the top during our discussion of the meaning of fairness, it was that Congress should play by the same set of rules as everyone else. Indeed, our middle-class, swing voters believed they were the only ones playing by the rules. And ironically, the group they indicted most for not playing by the rules were the very people talking about fairness: Members of Congress.

As one participant noted, “I keep thinking that if Congress, again, had to live by the rules they set in place for the American public, then I think you would see a lot more fairness.” On health care, “they don’t have to live with this crappy healthcare bill that they put out.” On Congressional pensions, “they’ve got their own plan, and after a year, they get paid. You know, you go into the corporate sector, if they have a pension, you have to be there at least five years.” The remedy to this unfairness our swing voters offered? Make Members of Congress “live on $20,000-30,000 a year” just like regular Americans.

Participants were much more likely to say that the government and Congress were currently not playing by the rules than they were to say the same about Wall Street or the wealthy. When we asked participants what their biggest economic concerns were, overwhelmingly the top two responses were “special interests have too much power in Washington” and “the government is spending our children’s future away.”

“I wouldn’t begrudge them their money.”

With barely 3 years elapsed since the collapse of the financial industry and the mortgage crisis, we expected participants to harbor more resentment towards Wall Street and banks. Much to our surprise, these voters expressed less outrage or anger at these financial institutions than expected. And, in many cases, they heaped a significant portion of blame on the government for setting up a system that encouraged the behaviors that led to the collapse. At the end of the day, our participants felt that banks and the financial industry had “learned their lesson” from the mistakes and transgressions of the past and would not be prone to repeat them.

In fact, when presented with a list of ten possible economic concerns and asked to circle the two most worrisome items, not a single person in the Richmond groups circled “abuses by Wall Street have undercut the economy”—it was the only concern that was not identified by even one voter. In the Denver groups, it ranked almost as low, with only one person circling the phrase in each group.

Similarly, these swing voters were not resentful of the rich being wealthy. They wanted millionaires to be accountable for avoiding taxes if they try to skirt the rules, but they also didn’t hold wealth, success, or money against people. A Richmond woman expressed her concern not with the top earners’ rate but government waste, saying, “Why should I care how much money [a millionaire] pays in taxes if the government wastes one dollar of my taxes!”

“If you are making money in this country, you should pay taxes. You should pay taxes according to what you’re bringing in.”

This disconnect between participants’ definition of fairness and the one some on the left have been attempting to deploy extended to policy debates as well. On taxes, for example, when asked how to improve fairness, participants wanted to simplify the code and make everyone play by the same rules, and to them, closing loopholes for special interests resonated much more deeply than making the rich “pay their fair share.”

For example, when asked about policies that would improve the economy and help people achieve the American Dream, participants overwhelmingly chose this answer: “make the tax code simpler, which means fewer tax breaks for special interests but also fewer deductions that help the middle class, and use the savings to lower overall tax rates.” Their second choice was “provide tax incentives to encourage large businesses to manufacture, research, and design products in America.” Only one person in the Richmond groups chose “raise taxes on the wealthy and use the money to pay down the debt and pay for important priorities” as among their top three, and in the Denver groups that proposal fell in the middle of the pack.

Most of the participants felt taxes should be reasonable and fair, and that those on the top shouldn’t pay less than the middle class. However, when asked how to implement that fairness principle in policy, the idea of everyone paying the same percent of their income in taxes appealed to many of these swing voters as the most fair option, since everyone would pay the same portion—literally playing by the same rules, which fit well with their definition of fairness. This is not to suggest they were clamoring for a flat tax. Our participants felt they already paid the highest rate, and so everyone paying the same percentage would just be bringing upper and lower income earners in line with their perceived rates. But a potential consequence of this association is that linking fairness to taxes for many of these voters actually triggered suggestions of a less progressive tax code than we currently have.

In another stunning turn, when directly faced with policy choices of either 1) making everyone who earns an income pay a $5 minimum tax, including the 46% of Americans who currently pay no income taxes, or 2) making millionaires pay 30% in taxes, participants chose the former over the latter. They openly debated how much taxing millionaires would actually help the economy or reduce the deficit. One participant noted, “what would it do for your community [if] the top 2% of the earners in your community or state or region [were] to pay slightly higher tax? You know, is that enough money? Is that going to be enough of a shift?”

But the minimum tax of $5 on income earners wasn’t designed to be punitive or mean-spirited. They believed everyone should contribute and have a stake—all Americans should have skin in the game to make things fairer. As one Denver man put it “Why should some of us pay taxes and others don’t have to pay taxes? I mean, it’s not like it’s $500, it’s $5.” Another said, “But you can add zeroes on the back of anybody’s income. And it’s relative to what it is. But I think if I pay taxes, if I’m paying $500, why can’t the guy who sits on the street with his sign pay $5. And I think it’s only a fair thing that all Americans pay taxes if they are capable of it.”* It should be noted however, that we did not get into this topic in depth to see if the surface appeal of this idea would hold up when voters learned how much the idea would cost and how much of an expansion of the IRS would be required to implement it.

When asked to rank various policies as either promoting fairness or helping the economy, the $5 minimum tax proposal ranked last or near last with all groups, suggesting the idea behind it—we’re all in this together—is important, but when forced to choose, other policy options were more enticing.

These findings indicate a limitation of the fairness argument: swing voters don’t define it in the same way as either party. For most of our focus group participants, the meaning of fairness was muddled. When pressed, they felt that Congress failed to play by the same rules as everyone else and posited that holding Congress accountable would make things fairer. And, perhaps most surprising, discussions of fairness failed to evoke strong anger and resentment towards either Wall Street or millionaires and billionaires.

Fairness doesn’t answer their central concern: economic growth.

The fairness theme had a second significant limitation: it doesn’t align with swing voters’ top economic concerns. To them, fairness was not viewed as related to job creation, economic growth, or winning the global economic race.

“I think the generation under my generation isn’t going to…do better.”

When asked about their chief economic concern, these swing voters had urgent and important questions about America’s future and how our country was going to compete in the global economy. They uniformly thought that China was winning the global economic battle, and they were gravely worried about our ability to keep up in the future. One man summed it up by saying, “China gets the gold because they are winning right now; that’s where all the factories are going.” Another woman worried, “This is the first time in my life where I think things are going to be worse [in the future]. I don’t think my kids are going to do better than I am.”

The budget deficit also weighed heavy on their minds because it contributed to uncertainty and American decline. They had major concerns about America’s future being hampered by debt, which was seen as both a hurdle to economic growth and a moral failure—even as they recognized debt was necessary, some participants still used the language of sin, “overindulgence” and “we were in a time of gluttony.” They described the country as “living on borrowed time” and compared the national fiscal situation to a household coping with crushing credit card debt. They called it a “weight on our shoulders” and said that people who are in debt are “frozen” and can’t act to move forward. Their most significant economic concern was how we are going to get our fiscal house in order, grow our economy, create good jobs, and put America back on top.

“We’re used to it not being fair, so we have to focus on growth.”

Even among those who supported policies like raising taxes on the wealthy or reducing income inequality, our participants did not believe that fairness was necessarily related to a healthy economy, economic growth, or jobs. As one Denver man noted, “Make all the millionaires pay a 30% tax rate. I’m for it, and it certainly promotes fairness. But in terms of whether or not it will help the economy, a tiny, tiny, tiny, drop in the bucket.” And another said “growth doesn’t have to include fairness.”

And in contrast with the various definitions people brought to the discussion of “fairness,” the terms “growth” and “opportunity” conveyed the same and nearly universal meaning—job creation.

We asked participants to evaluate proposed economic policies on a 1-to-10 scale as to how well these policies promoted fairness or helped the economy grow. Participants selected “prohibit members of Congress from using insider information when making personal investments” (9.2) as their top ranked choice to promote fairness. The second ranked policy to promote fairness was to increase the minimum wage and tie increases to inflation (7.9). Raising the minimum wage was also the top-ranked policy for helping the economy (7.4).

Other policy choices—including a 30% millionaire’s tax, free college or trade school, and capping CEO pay relative to employees—were in the middle of the pack, both for promoting fairness and helping the economy. But the second most popular policy for economic growth was cutting taxes on job creators (6.9), which was second to last on the promoting fairness scale. A similar split occurred with expanding Medicare to cover everyone, ranking fourth (6.2) for fairness and last (4.8) for helping the economy.

Our participants were not opposed to many of these policies. But they did think that many of the “fairness” proposals addressed fundamentally different problems than the ones they had identified as their major economic concerns. And, most crucially, these swing voters did not believe fairness was a core element of a successful economy. When asked what the components of a healthy economy were, the top choices were strong leadership, consumer confidence, and people working.* Fairness barely registered.

“People working” was generally preferable to unemployment statistics because folks thought the statistics didn’t tell the whole story (e.g., people who stop looking or underemployment) and because it was a tangible sign in their communities.

Repeatedly, though, we heard, “life isn’t fair” and “we’re used to it not being fair, so we have to focus on growth.” When asked directly, no one thought a plan for economic growth would have to include fairness, or that increasing fairness would necessarily stimulate growth.

An Alternative Framework

Economic opportunity resonates more deeply than fairness with swing voters.

These swing voters repeatedly chose opportunity over fairness as the more powerful economic framework. When asked to pick which of four options the economy needs most—economic fairness, economic security, economic growth, or economic opportunity—they overwhelmingly identified growth and opportunity as most important, with only one person choosing each fairness and security. And they agreed that opportunity and growth are things that benefit everyone, while they often saw fairness as benefiting only some.

“Everyone can achieve [the American Dream]…It’s a matter of hard work.”

Unlike their confusion about the definition of fairness, participants in our focus groups almost immediately agreed upon what economic opportunity signified—the freedom to make choices in their life and have the means to do the things they want. To them, opportunity meant they have the tools to succeed within their own hands and the recognition that success is dependent on hard work. And in conjunction with this desire for opportunity, they oppose policies that take away individual freedom to achieve or dictate outcomes. As one Denver man described economic opportunity, “I may just be a janitor, but I’m being paid for the work that I’m doing and I know that a sports celebrity is getting paid lots of money because he’s a celebrity. But I realize… if I work on my skills and myself, I can move up the ladder, so to speak.”

In this vein, opportunity signifies that people would be able to develop their skills and talents and broaden their knowledge base, and get a good job or move to a better job. It implied the ability to get a loan to start a business or buy a home. Essentially, they view opportunity as the ability for hardworking citizens to achieve.

A good job means “doing something you like to do, and getting paid to do it.”

Economic opportunity is also equated with “good” jobs, which are considered the cornerstone of a healthy economy and the American Dream. The components participants identified are grounded in particular assumptions about a “good” job, which allows them to invest in their family and enjoy a measure of freedom. Such a job provides health insurance; includes regular raises to keep up with rising costs; supports a family, including education for your children; and pays enough so you can save for retirement and, perhaps, a little extra for a vacation.

But “good” jobs implied something more than the material resources necessary for security and stability. People also want to feel satisfied in their work. And not surprisingly, they sought opportunities for self-actualization—not wanting to be cogs in a machine. Jobs are seen as providing both economic security and a sense of personal fulfillment, which is why unemployment weighed so heavily in most people’s evaluation of the nation’s well-being and their own prospects.

“Somehow leadership has to figure out how to give us hope…right now, everybody’s so down.”

Finally, opportunity also appealed to a deeper yearning these voters harbored, in a way that the fairness framework didn’t. While fairness is often pitched pessimistically, focusing on the ways that the system is “stacked against you” and describing lower and middle-class Americans as victims in an unfair world, opportunity taps into the optimism for which these swing voters were searching—inspiring confidence and hope for the future.

In diagnosing the current problems with the economy, participants overwhelmingly mentioned both a lack of leadership and a sense of fear and uncertainty. And their solutions frequently were emotive—responsibility, hope, and confidence—which they thought were the best strategies to revive the economy. In fact, when asked what the most important ingredient was for a healthy economy, they identified not lower unemployment numbers or other tangible factors, but “strong leadership” as the most important ingredient.

These swing voters are seeking an optimistic vision for the future. Despite their concerns, they believe America still has the resources to succeed, including an innovative and entrepreneurial culture, investments and advances in technology and alternative energy, and the strength of our small businesses. In short, they believe America is the land of milk and honey, and if we work together we can take advantage of our resources and our freedoms to succeed. Answering their plea for optimism, confidence, and leadership will go further towards wooing them than blaming the system for unfairness.

Overall, economic opportunity was the most effective framework with these swing voters. They had a clear understanding of opportunity, it answered their fundamental economic question in a way fairness did not, and it presented an optimistic vision for the future.

Conclusion

In the classic 1987 film The Princess Bride, Vizzini—Buttercup’s kidnapper—remarks, “Inconceivable!” every time the dread Pirate Roberts uses skill and cunning to overcome the obstacles and reach his fair maiden. The venerable swordsmen Inigo Montoya instantly recognizes Vizzini’s folly and notes, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” In answering the central economic question in the minds of swing voters, policymakers would be wise to heed the advice of Inigo Montoya—fairness does not mean what they think it means.

Fairness had many meanings to these swing voters, but it was not linked with a plan to grow and expand the economy, create jobs, and put America on top. By contrast, economic opportunity clearly meant providing the tools to achieve through hard work and ensuring the availability of “good” jobs that are at the heart of the middle-class experience. Relying on fairness as a theme or an economic recovery plan has serious limitations with these swing voters. An optimistic vision of opportunity better answers their concerns while simultaneously quenching a deeper thirst for confidence and leadership. The question is which party can own this central political terrain of opportunity and best appeal to these swing voters.