… The 2014 General Social Survey, conducted by the research organization NORC at the University of Chicago, asked a national sample of adults whether their standard of living was better, the same or worse than that of their parents. …
Let’s call non-college-educated whites who said they were doing worse the “downwardly mobile” and similar whites who said they were doing better the “upwardly mobile.” The answers of these two groups to questions in the 2014 survey foreshadowed the divisions that would emerge in the Trump campaign. …
No other candidate in this race has addressed the concerns of downwardly mobile working-class whites so directly. In doing so, Mr. Trump has highlighted the disaffected downwardly mobile as a key voting bloc. CONT.
Andrew J. Cherlin (Johns Hopkins), New York Times