'Where you stand, depends on where you work': essential workers' political attitude formation

Have essential workers' roles as workers informed their attitudes towards politics? Due to their economic roles, essential workers' in-person work activated distinct political learning processes that shape attitude formation. Observational and experimental data from a new national survey of two of the largest populations overrepresented among essential workers in the United States, Filipina/o and Mexican American women and men, demonstrate that essential workers across a wide range of occupations are more likely to talk about politics at work, interact with people from diverse backgrounds and say that they understand politics well. Essential workers' sense of political efficacy and connection to their community are also significantly different from that of other Americans. Additionally, this study shows that "essential worker" is a politically meaningful designation whose salience alters some individuals' attitudes, but that the lived experiences of being an essential worker appear much more consequential in informing attitudes. These effects are conditional on gender and ethnicity, and underscore the central importance of work-based experiences for politics.