Noah Smith
· Noahpinion
· July 12, 2026 at 09:22
· ⏱ 17 min read
| Read on Substack ↗
Summary
Noah Smith argues that American class identity is defined by future earning potential rather than current income or lifestyle, and that this explains both his own self‑identification and the political disconnect between the Democratic Party's elite base and working‑class voters. The essay contains no market‑relevant trade ideas or financial analysis.
•Author grew up in a one‑bathroom house with linoleum floors and a beat‑up Tercel, yet never considered himself working class because he believed class is about potential, not present circumstances.
•His family income was around the 35th–38th percentile in the 1980s, but his father had a PhD and tenure‑track job, and the family saved aggressively for college.
•Author attended Stanford tuition‑free; his sister turned down Harvard for University of Michigan, incurring out‑of‑state tuition despite a merit scholarship.
•He was a member of the grad student instructors’ union at Michigan and the professors’ union at Stony Brook, and marched in a 2008 strike while completing a PhD.
•Milton Friedman’s Permanent Income Hypothesis is invoked to separate current income from lifetime expected income, though Smith notes the hypothesis was empirically wrong.
•By 2024, low‑income, low‑education voters broke heavily for Donald Trump, and even self‑identified working‑class voters have been leaving the Democratic Party.
•The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are disproportionately college‑educated (80% with degrees, more than a third with postgraduate degrees), far above the national average.
•Graham Platner, a Maine Senate candidate recruited by progressive operatives, had a background (college dropout, oyster farmer on welfare) that was pattern‑matched to a working‑class stereotype, despite his parents being a lawyer and an architect.