Authors: Nicholas Carnes and Noam Lupu

Why do so few working-class people go on to hold elected office? In the average democracy, working-class jobs make up about 70 percent of occupations, but only 2 percent of national legislators come from working-class jobs.

In “Keeping Workers Off the Ballot,” Nicholas Carnes and Noam Lupu show that this disparity is not because working-class people are less appealing to voters, less interested in running, or less qualified.

Carnes and Lupu argue that it is the nature of elections themselves that keep workers off our ballots and out of office.