Former Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown launches Dignity of Work Institute

In the wake of a bruising 2024 election, Democrats are looking to define their party’s identity and former Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown is offering a familiar answer. With the launch of his Dignity of Work Institute, Brown is making the case for a politics focused on the cost of living for working class voters.

“We see what’s happened over the last 40 years,” Brown said in a press conference Monday. “Corporate profits have soared, executive compensation has exploded, and productivity keeps going up and up, but wages aren’t rising along with it, and the cost of living just keeps getting more expensive.”

“In a nutshell,” he added, “people can’t keep up no matter how hard they work.”

In a survey of registered voters, the institute found exactly the sorts of concerns you’d expect if you followed last year’s election — workers are feeling pinched by increasing costs and stagnant wages. The study found a strong majority of respondents have had to work more than one job at some point in their lives. A quarter of respondents have had to do so in the last two years.

Workers told researchers they’re ready for significant changes to the economy that would lower costs and increase wages. Nevertheless, they report optimism for their near-term futures.

“Workers keep telling us the status quo isn’t working for them and their families, but neither party — neither party — has an agenda to create the dramatic change that workers want and the dramatic change that workers are demanding,” Brown said.

There has been speculation that Brown might use the institute as a springboard for  a future political campaign. But he insisted that’s not the case.

“This institute is not part of those plans, period,” he said, adding, “I don’t know what I’m going to do in the future.”

The study

The research firm GQR contacted 1,000 registered voters over the phone last month for the survey and then supplemented that with additional sampling of Black, Hispanic and younger (18-29 years old) voters. They report a +/- 3.1 percentage point margin of error overall, with margins about twice as large among the oversampled groups.

Pollster Al Quinn called their findings “one of the more startling projects” in his career.

“It paints a picture, as the senator said, of Americans fighting to stay afloat in an economy that’s much more brittle than the standard narrative suggests,” he explained.

To boil it all down, he said, respondents throughout the survey are struggling with money going out the door faster than it’s coming in.

“How are they dealing with it?” he said. “They’re working more.”

According to the survey, 6 in 10 have worked two jobs at some point, and 1 in 5 reported having to work at least three jobs at once. Although people are working hard, their financial outlook remains precarious.

“Over half — 54% say I could not really afford a $1,000 hit,” Quinn explained. “That would produce a significant burden, to a massive burden on my household.”

To make ends meet, he went on, people are relying on government assistance programs like Medicaid, unemployment, SNAP food benefits, and school lunch programs. Sixty percent of respondents reported using at least one program. When pollsters asked respondents what stands in the way of them getting ahead, 86% wanted to see “significant” changes to the economy.

“People were saying, I need these costs to come down, I can’t afford them, and I need more income coming in, I’m just incredibly strapped,” Quinn described.

At the same time, they found an abiding optimism among respondents. Pollsters asked them to rate their current situation on a zero-to-10 scale and then asked them where they expected to be in five years. Quinn said many believe things will get better. They’ll pick up another job, get training for a promotion, or even move to take a better gig.

“They are aspirational,” he said, “but the system is not what’s giving them those aspirations. It’s their own personal drive and their own personal wherewithal.”

The institute’s (and Brown’s) aspirations

To Brown, the study underscores a strain of working-class dissatisfaction with politics writ large.

“I think that they think Democrats are the party of betrayal and Republicans are the party of rewarding the rich,” Brown said. “I want there to be, not a separate party, but I want the workers to feel like they have a home in both parties, both parties are addressing their concerns, and it’s pretty clear they aren’t.”

As an example, he pointed to a court case in Texas challenging a Biden-era rule on how overtime gets calculated.

“One judge in one district struck down that rule on overtime,” he explained. “It means 4 million workers will not get overtime that would have, that had come from a Department of Labor rule, but I’ve heard neither party fight back against that court case.”

“It’s things like that that are happening far too often,” he added, “and this institute will speak out on those things.”

But for all Brown’s efforts to downplay his own political future, it’s hard to miss the echoes of the former senator’s political brand, including Brown’s “dignity of work” slogan and the institute’s mission that reads like a Brown stump speech. Even if he decides not to run for office again, Brown’s clearly still hoping to have an impact.

“It’s not a one-day story, it’s not a one-month Institute,” he said. “We’re going to raise money — we’re starting. We’re going to hire people — we’re starting. This is going to be a big deal, if done right, and we’re going to do it right nationally.”

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