The Impact of Unemployment on Congressional Elections 1958-1974

Abstract

Bivariate tabulations uncover relationships between the high rates of change in and high rates of unemployment and the percentage of states experiencing gains in the U.S. House Democratic percentage vote during the period 1958-1974. Efforts to establish linear relationships between these unemployment measures and either the percentage of the Democratic vote or the interelection change in the Democratic vote produced null results. The failure to discover consistent and meaningful relationships through these modes of analysis suggests that the political impact of unemployment may not be linear. Reasons are advanced as to why unemployment, while not unimportant, appears to have been less potent in more recent elections than previously assumed.