_WHAT’S HAPPENING_
New analyses of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have revealed a striking, though possibly not unsurprising, demographic reality about the organization.
Though it claims to represent "the working class," it draws its membership overwhelmingly from college-educated people whose incomes do not live up to the promises of their degrees.
_THE FACTS_
A DSA internal survey found 80 percent of members aged 25 or older were college-educated, compared to roughly 35 percent of the general population.
Some 28 percent of DSA members made more than $100,000 annually.
New data reveals voters with postgraduate degrees earning $30,000-$60,000 annually are the most Democratic voting bloc in America.
Among DSA members, 45 percent reported household incomes below $60,000, roughly twice the rate of college-educated Americans overall.
Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) rose from 7 percent of members in 2013 to 60 percent by 2021.
As of 2021, 85 percent of members reported their race as white.
Peter Turchin's "elite overproduction" hypothesis suggests America produces more college graduates than high-prestige jobs available to them.
The most Republican demographic identified in the data is high earners without college degrees.
_OUR TAKE_
DSA uses rhetoric fitting 1910s America, though unlike them, they largely represent young professionals working in corporate office buildings rather than in soot-filled mines.
Many of these young socialists expected their college degrees to deliver economic prosperity, but instead found themselves saddled with debt and limited prospects. While some of these “working class champions” are high earners, the rest appear to be downwardly mobile — a damning indictment of both the college-degree bubble and the promise of a robust job market that actually has no use for them.
