Homer Simpson is everyone’s favourite doughnut-munching cartoon character. However underlying the cartoonish antics lies a deep, pessimistic economic commentary on America. Homer Simpson represents the average middle-class American experiencing the pressures of ever-rising costs, whilst wages rise sluggishly. This is unfortunately a reality faced by many Americans today in the middle-class squeeze.

The above graph shows Homer Simpson’s jobs over the entire span of the Simpsons. As you can see there have been some cases where he has reached upper class however the vast majority are in the middle and lower class. If we are now to take Homer as a representation of the American middle class, we see that there are only few instances where people are able to rise above their class and in the majority of cases there is stagnation. This therefore helps demonstrate the very low social mobility in America.

The result of slow economic growth coupled with rampant inequality is that many middle-class Americans have been left with a bitter taste of the Obama-administration and so-called experts. There has also been a rapid fall in employment in manufacturing jobs as shown below, which has affected the middle-class and lower-class much more severely as these are mostly jobs for them. This is due to declining industries where products have been made obsolete due to new innovations or due to offshoring, where firms decide that it would be more profitable to manufacture in another country due to lower labour costs. For example, Mondelez International downsized one of its bakeries in Chicago to move to Mexico – the response of Trump was to swear that he would never have another Oreo again. Therefore, workers seek policies that will stem this loss due to offshoring and help them keep their jobs, which in turn help support local communities. This caused them to naturally favour Trump.

In an atmosphere of desperation, the middle-class workers voted for Trump, an outsider to the political system and a businessman renowned for growing his own company, and his simplistic solutions. This phenomenon can be seen below as the Republican votes mostly coincide with areas of high proportions of manufacturing employment, which typically comprise of middle-class workers.

Homer epitomises workers with stagnating and lower-than-average salaries, as shown below, and would therefore probably have been swayed by Trump’s policy promises to “make America great again”.

However the real culprit is not cheap products from abroad but rather an immobile domestic society. Inadequate education systems, career opportunities and financial knowledge cause a society where people are stuck in lower classes and are especially suffering now due to the rise of technology and services sectors which do not necessarily share the fruits of their growth to the majority.

Dylan Parekh

References:

Vox. (2017). What Homer Simpson’s 100+ jobs tell us about America’s middle class. [online] Available at: https://www.vox.com/2016/9/6/12752476/the-simpsons-homer-middle-class [Accessed 18 Jul. 2017].