Who graduates, who votes and who's unemployed -- in one graph

By Ezra Klein

It seems a little crazy that tax cuts for the nation's very richest residents are commanding more political energy and consensus than unemployment insurance. Among other things, the tax cuts aren't popular. Unemployment insurance is. And this is one of the worst economies in memory. You'd think we'd be very worried about mitigating the suffering.

But the political system seems to be moving on to more abstract economic concerns, like the deficit. This graph might help explain why. It compares the unemployment rates of people in different educational groups to not only their share of the population, but to their share of the 2010 electorate:

People with a high school diploma or less are having huge unemployment problems and comprise a fair amount of the country -- but they don't turn out to vote. People with some college or more, conversely, do turn out to vote -- but they're facing a much better job market. In particular, only about a quarter of Americans have a college diploma or better, but they made up 51 percent of the electorate in 2010. And in that group, the unemployment rate is only about 5 percent. If you assume that the political system is particularly attuned to their concerns, the current focus makes more sense.