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Individually, the poor may not have the same opportunities to join groups.
Verba et al.,
Voice and Equality ; Mark J. Rozell, Clyde Wilcox, and Michael M. Franz. 2012.
Interest Groups in American Campaigns: The New Face of Electioneering . Oxford University Press: New York. They may work two jobs to make ends meet and lack the free time necessary to participate in politics. Further, there are often financial barriers to participation. For someone who punches a time-clock, spending time with political groups may be costly and paying dues may be a hardship. Certainly, the poor are unable to hire expensive lobbying firms to represent them. Structural barriers like voter identification laws may also disproportionately affect people with low socioeconomic status, although the effects of these laws may not be fully understood for some time.
The poor may also have low levels of efficacy , which refers to the conviction that you can make a difference or that government cares about you and your views. People with low levels of efficacy are less likely to participate in politics, including voting and joining interest groups. Therefore, they are often underrepresented in the political arena.
Minorities may also participate less often than the majority population, although when we control for wealth and education levels, we see fewer differences in participation rates. Still, there is a bias in participation and representation, and this bias extends to interest groups as well. For example, when fast food workers across the United States went on strike to demand an increase in their wages, they could do little more than take to the streets bearing signs, like the protestors shown in
[link] . Their opponents, the owners of restaurant chains and others who pay their employees minimum wage, could hire groups such as the Employment Policies Institute, which paid for billboard ads in Times Square in New York City. The billboards implied that raising the minimum wage was an insult to people who worked hard and discouraged people from getting an education to better their lives.
Aaron Smith, “Conservative Group’s Times Square Billboard Attacks a $15 Minimum Wage,” 31 August 2015, http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/31/news/economy/times-square-minimum-wage/.
Finally, people do not often participate because they lack the political skill to do so or believe that it is impossible to influence government actions.
Robert Putnam. 2000.
Bowling Alone . New York: Simon and Shuster; Rosenstone and Hansen,
Mobilization, Participation and Democracy in America . They might also lack interest or could be apathetic. Participation usually requires some knowledge of the political system, the candidates, or the issues. Younger people in particular are often cynical about government’s response to the needs of non-elites.
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