Donald Trump support from the white working class was one keys to his victory. There been many explanations from racism to unemployment. University of California Hastings law professor John Williamson much of white middle America feels forgotten by politicians and ignored by liberal elites. Midday edition producer Michael Lipkin spoke with Joan Williams about current new book overcoming class cluelessness in America Let's talk about what we are talking about always a working class. You define it as the middle-class people earning between 40,000 and $130,000 a year. The median salary of a high school graduate is only about 35,000 so is most of this working class college educated? No that is definitional. What we are talking about when people talk about the working class is people who are not college graduates. The way I do find them is the middle 53% of Americans with income around $72,000 that means half below and have above 72. We are not talking about the college grads. We are talking about the working class. For the elites to make The way I do find when I call the professional elite is people whose incomes are in the top 20% of households and have at least one college grad so if you boil that down is about 60% of Americans. What is the key thing about the white working class that you believe that elites are failing to understand? So much. Something that I think it's really important to recognize is the voters that delivered the election to Trump are a very specific set of white working-class voters in states who feel that their futures are slipping away. Their fathers and grandfathers had solid blue-collar jobs and delivered a standard of living exactly the kinds of jobs that have many of them have now left the country. There also was in the 1930s and 40s the blue-collar guys were at the center of the social imagination of people who saw themselves as trying to improve society. That changed around 1970. At just about the time that these guys was sharply decreasing, the social imagination of the progressive elite shifted away from them on to other projects for people of color, for women, for that I'll be GT community -- L be GT community. So you have a group of people and this is the people that Trump cash they are the forgotten ones in the United States. A lot of this anger you would argue is about genuine concerns about job security and the economy being overlooked by the countries elites. You even mentioned that the working class of all races has been asked to swallow a lot of economic pain while they focus on non-economic issues. So why focus your book on just the white working class opposed to working-class at-large? Those are the voters that delivered the election to Trump and that's really -- this book is designed for anyone who was surprised that Trump one and trying to understand why he won and is trying to understand what we should do going forward to turn around the dynamic that gave Trump the election. You have said in the past that you take issue with story after story and outlets like the New York Times or on NPR that are compassionate towards immigrants. You said the financial times that an outpouring of compassion for immigrants will her immigrants. I don't take issue with those stories. I myself feel compassionate towards immigrants and deeply upset at how frightened and targeted they are. My point is simply that if you set up a dynamic where the culture leads are very empathetic and concern with immigrants, people of color, that -- but are playing open stopped stereotypes of the white working class that is just going to fuel white working-class anger. Not only against the elites but against those groups who are seen as a favor children of the elites. The answer is not to be harsh and unfeeling towards immigrants. The answer is to recognize that class II is a very important force in our society and that people disadvantaged by class are people who are socially disadvantaged and that should be understood that way. Many immigrants, many members are also working class so they are facing the same economic issues that the white working classes but have additional challenges. What would you say to elites who want to be attentive to those additional structural problems that they face while also not alienating the working-class? I spent to someone who nearly 40 years has been interested and attentive to social inequality. That is all I am saying here. I do not think this is zero game where we should shift attention away from the LGBT community or immigrants and focus instead on the white working-class. I'm just saying that we as the cultural elite should be more consistent and recognize social disadvantage where we see it whether it's in the white working class or whether it's in the LGBT community. That was Joan Williams speaking with Michael Lipkin.
Twice as many white, working class voters cast ballots for Donald Trump compared to Hillary Clinton. University of California, Hastings College of the Law professor Joan Williams said, liberals lost the support of the white working class after years of favoring other demographics.
"During an era when wealthy white Americans have learned to sympathetically imagine the lives of the poor, people of color, and LGBTQ people, the white working class has been insulted or ignored during precisely the period when their economic fortunes tanked," Williams wrote in her new book, "White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America."
Based on a popular Harvard Business Review article written immediately after the election, Williams' book argues that elites have left the white working class out of many of their economic plans. Many members of the working class don't want college degrees and would rather get vocational training for middle-skill jobs, though Democrats focused on college affordability during the campaign, Williams said.
Williams joins KPBS Midday Edition on Wednesday with more on what motivates the white working class.
