Winner of the 2022 Gladys M. Kammerer Award from the American Political Science Association

“Hijacking the Agenda should have a big impact on how we think about Congress, policymaking, and political inequality. It provides an ambitious and creative analysis of an often-overlooked dimension of political power—the outsized role of the wealthy and well-organized in determining whose problems get addressed and whose get ignored.”
—Larry M. Bartels, May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science, Vanderbilt University

“To know who governs, we must know who controls the governing agenda. In this innovative book, four top political scientists show that the congressional agenda is disproportionately shaped by economic elites and the politicians most friendly to and funded by them. Combining sophisticated quantitative analysis and compelling case studies, Hijacking the Agenda sets a new standard for research on inequality and American democracy—and sounds a loud warning that all scholars and citizens should hear.”
—Jacob Hacker, Stanley Resor Professor of Political Science, Yale University

Why are the economic concerns of lower- and middle-class Americans so often ignored by Congress, while the economic goals of the wealthiest are prioritized, often resulting in policies promoting their interests? In Hijacking the Agenda, political scientists Christopher Witko, Jana Morgan, Nathan J. Kelly, and Peter K. Enns examine why Congress privileges the concerns of businesses and the wealthy over those of average Americans. They go beyond demonstrating this bias to document how and why economic policy is skewed in favor of the rich.

The authors analyze over 20 years of floor speeches by thousands of members of Congress to examine how campaign contributions and independent expenditures on behalf of candidates help set the national economic agenda. They find that legislators receiving more support from business and other wealthy interests were more likely to discuss the deficit and other upper-class priorities, while those receiving more assistance from unions were more likely to discuss issues important to the lower and middle class, such as economic inequality and wages. This attention imbalance matters because when members of Congress talk about certain issues, their speech is often followed by legislative action. While unions use their resources to push back against wealthy interests, spending by the wealthy dwarfs that of unions, often giving the upper class the upper hand.

The authors use case studies analyzing financial regulation and the minimum wage to demonstrate how the economic power of the wealthy enables them to advance their agenda. In each case, the authors examine structural power, or the power that comes from a group’s economic position, and kinetic power, the power that comes from the ability to mobilize organizational and financial resources in the policy process. They show how business uses its structural power and resources to effect policy change in Congress, as when the financial industry in the late 1990s promoted passage of a bill that eviscerated financial regulations put in place after the Great Depression. Likewise, when business wants to preserve the status quo, it uses its power to keep issues off of the legislative agenda, as when inflation erodes the value of the minimum wage and its declining purchasing power leaves minimum-wage workers in poverty. Although groups representing lower- and middle-class interests, particularly unions, are sometimes able to shape policy if conditions are right, they lack structural power and have limited financial resources. As a result, the wealthy have considerable advantages in the policy process, advantages that only intensify as their economic power becomes more concentrated and policymakers continue to see policies beneficial to business as beneficial for all.

Hijacking the Agenda is an illuminating account of the way economic power influences the congressional agenda and policy process to privilege the wealthy and marks a major step forward in understanding the politics of inequality.

CHRISTOPHER WITKO is professor of public policy and political science and associate director of the School of Public Policy at Pennsylvania State University.

JANA MORGAN is professor of political science at the University of Tennessee.

NATHAN J. KELLY is professor of political science at the University of Tennessee.

PETER K. ENNS is professor of government at Cornell University and executive director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.

“This powerful book should be mandatory reading for anyone who cares about our nation. The authors provide compelling evidence that by neglecting what science shows our children and families really need, we are imperiling our future. Even more importantly, they offer a plan to support all our children and their parents, ensuring that each of our children has the opportunity to thrive.”

—David T. Ellwood, Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economy, and director, Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Early care and education in the United States is in crisis. The period between birth and kindergarten is a crucial time for a child’s development. Yet vast racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities that begin early in children’s lives contribute to starkly different long-term outcomes for adults. Compared to other advanced economies, child care and preschool in the U.S. are scarce, prohibitively expensive, and inadequate in quality for most middle- and low-income families. To what extent can early-life opportunities provide these children with the same life chances of their affluent peers and contribute to reduced social inequality in the long term, and across generations? The updated second edition of Cradle to Kindergarten offers a comprehensive, evidence-based strategy that diagnoses the obstacles to accessible early education and charts a path to opportunity for all children.

The U.S. government invests less in children under the age of five than do most other developed nations. Most working families must seek private child care, but high-quality child care options are expensive relative to the means of most families. This means that children from lower-income households, who would benefit most from high-quality early education, are the least likely to attend them. Existing policies, such as pre-kindergarten in some states, are only partial solutions, and what exists varies tremendously in terms of access and quality.

To address these deficiencies, the authors propose to overhaul the early care and education system, beginning with a federal paid parental leave policy that provides both mothers and fathers with time and financial support after the birth of a child. They also advance an expansion of the child care tax credit, and a new child care assurance program that provides grant assistance towards the cost of high-quality early care for low- and moderate-income families. Their plan establishes universal, high-quality early education in the states starting by age three, and a reform of the Head Start program that would include more intensive services for families living in areas of concentrated poverty and experiencing multiple adversities from the earliest point in these most disadvantaged children’s lives. They conclude with an implementation plan and contend that these reforms are attainable well within a ten-year timeline.

Reducing educational and economic inequalities requires that all children have robust opportunities to learn and fully develop their capacities and have a fair shot at success. Cradle to Kindergarten presents a blueprint for fulfilling this promise by expanding access to educational and financial resources at a critical stage of child development.

Ajay Chaudry is a writer on social policy and research professor at New York University, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Services Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the administration of President Barack Obama.

Taryn Morrissey is Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy at American University.

Christina Weiland is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Michigan.

Hirokazu Yoshikawa is the Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and Co-Director of the Global TIES for Children Center at New York University.

This book examines the Work Projects Administration, previously known as the Work Progress Administration, as well as other national relief policies. The WPA was the name applied to the federally operated and financed program inaugurated in the summer of 1935 in which as many as fifty federal agencies cooperated in providing jobs for workers meeting prescribed conditions of eligibility.

Donald S. Howard was assistant director of the Charity Organization Department of the Russell Sage Foundation.

A survey of amateur and community theatrical productions and activity in the early twentieth century, in particular dramatics for children through public and private schools, playground and community centers, and various voluntary organizations. With a selected bibliography for amateur workers in drama.

Clarence Arthur Perry was the author of Wider Use of the School Plant, Housing for the Machine Age, and The Rebuilding of Blighted Areas.

This report is about the Community Law Offices (CLO), which operated two neighborhood law offices in Manhattan—in East and Central Harlem—that provided free legal services to individuals and groups who could not afford private attorneys. CLO relied primarily on attorneys in private practice who volunteered part of their time to handle the cases brought to the two offices. Formation and growth, an overview of its operations, and an evaluation of volunteer performance are discussed.

Douglas E. Rosenthal was chief of the Foreign Commerce Section of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. Robert A. Kagan is professor of political science and law at the University of California, Berkeley.

This is the second in a series of technical reports presenting tabulations of basic data resulting from questionnaires and interview schedules used in connection with the Russell Sage Foundation program of research on the social consequences of testing, which aimed to examine the possible social impacts of the use of standardized ability tests (such as intelligence, aptitude, and achievement tests) in schools and occupational settings in the United States.

DAVID A. GOSLIN was staff sociologist at the Russell Sage Foundation and author of The School in Contemporary Society.

With each depression emergency measures are embarked upon—and the results generally forgotten. This study recovers and records significant experience in previous depressions for its bearing upon present and future policies. Published in 1936.

Leah H. Feder was associate professor of applied sociology at Washington University.

The Department of Child Helping of the Russell Sage Foundation completed a detailed study of 151 public institutions for delinquent youth in the United States in 1924, including a few private institutions supported chiefly by public funds. The work of such schools is unique, technical, and vitally important, but up to the time that this study was undertaken no complete and detailed information regarding these institutions was available. The department undertook the study with the goal of informing the public and awakening its interest in these schools, and of assisting trustees and superintendents to improve the methods, standards, and conditions of their work. This book examines academics, physical care, and parole for delinquent girls, as well as building conditions, salaries in training schools, record-keeping, and community aspects of institutional life.

Margaret Reeves was field agent of the Russell Sage Foundation and director of the State Bureau of Child Welfare, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

This book aimed to bring about a wider public knowledge of social casework—to examine and report upon the ways in which social caseworkers and social casework agencies go about the task of securing public understanding, and the ways in which the usefulness of casework has grown through good understanding. It is directed particularly to the casework field, but its analysis of how casework is interpreted in one community has importance for all branches of social work.

Viola Paradise was research associate in the Department of Social Work Interpretation of the Russell Sage Foundation.

This 1930 report of a statistical study of 10,000 small loans is part of the Small Loans Series, a general survey of small loans prepared for the Russell Sage Foundation by the Department of Remedial Loans. Topics include the development of the small loan business and the social, economic, and living conditions of borrowers.

Louis N. Robinson was professor of economics at Swarthmore College.