Appendix B:

Analysis of the Washington, D.C., Interest-Group Community

In the beginning of Chapter 5 I noted that I conducted an analysis of the Washington, D.C., interest-group community that used slightly more recent data to reach the same broad conclusion as past work (i.e., the paucity of organizations that represent individuals facing nonemployment based economic insecurity, especially for nonretirement issues). I present more detailed results from that investigation here. My analysis was based on the Washington Information Directory (WID), an annual publication that includes brief descriptions of all governmental and nongovernmental organizations in Washington, D.C. It includes organizations engaged in lobbying as well as nonprofit groups that might be critical service providers and advocates for people facing economic disadvantage. It is advantageous for the purpose at hand because it covers precisely the types of citizen groups that are most likely to mobilize individuals around broad-based issues like economic insecurity. Although it is difficult to have a census of every possible group active at the national level, previous work has concluded that the WID represents a “relatively complete set of all the major groups active at the national level.”¹

Upon completing my searches, I also compared the results to the list of advocacy organizations that Matt Grossmann obtained using a variety of reference and organizational websites such as Washington Representatives Directory.² This comparison yielded no instances in which he located a group that would be reasonably considered the public representatives of people facing the various forms of economic insecurity considered here and that were not already in my data set.

Using the WID, I conducted keyword searches related to each of the four issues at the heart of this book: jobs/unemployment, health care costs, retirement security, and education costs.³ In each case I focused only on nongovernmental institutions, and the searches included both the titles and brief descriptions of the organization’s primary goals. In total, the searches returned 55 groups related to unemployment and jobs, 23 related to the cost of health care, 50 related to the cost of retirement, Social Security, and Medicare, and 14 related to the cost of higher education. The full lists appear in Tables B.1 – B.4.

In addition to the comparison with Grossmann’s findings, I also conducted simple tests of face validity to ensure that the keyword searches were capturing what I meant them to capture (or, put differently, to ensure that the group descriptions in the WID are reasonably informative). My test of face validity focused on the results regarding retirement security, a research area in which the interest-group community has been extensively documented.⁴ In particular, in her book on the rise of senior citizens as an organized political group, Andrea Campbell identifies four groups as the major organizations in the senior citizen realm: AARP, National Council of Senior Citizens (which is now the Alliance for Retired Americans), Gray Panthers, and National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. I would thus expect my retirement insecurity search to return all four groups. Indeed, as shown in Table B.3, all four groups are listed. As a basic measure of face validity, the information contained in the WID appears to satisfy my purposes.

Each of the groups listed in Tables B.1–B.4 clearly has some involvement with insecurity issues. But to borrow the language of Schlozman and colleagues, my question was whether any were organized with the expressed purpose of representing such non–occupationally defined economic interests.⁵ Posing the question in this way was critical for thinking about what kinds of organizations I should use for the experiments in Chapter 5 (especially those with national-level groups).

Turning to the WID, I’ll step through each of the four major areas. With respect to jobs and unemployment, the answer is clearly none. Not one of the 55 groups in Table B.1 purport to represent the interests of the unemployed or those facing job insecurity per se. To the extent they are involved with job insecurity–related issues, it is largely through their work serving as advocates for well-defined subsets of the population. To be sure, some of these groups do maintain extensive membership lists and do request money and time from individual citizens who support their mission. For instance, Wider Opportunities for Women focuses on job opportunities for women, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League focus on opportunities for African Americans, and Gray Panthers and Experience Works, Inc. focus on job training and opportunities for seniors. At times, all of them arguably wear a much broader social justice hat that involves advocating for policies that would benefit all un- or underemployed workers, including unemployment insurance, workforce education, and job training. Yet none of them describes itself as being organized around this express purpose (which matters for my purpose at hand, given that the primary goal of my WID analysis was to find organizations that might describe themselves in this way). Beyond these groups, the list includes a few labor unions or labor union–affiliated groups: the Service Employees International Union, the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, and Working America (a community affiliate of the AFLCIO). I discussed the changing political role of labor unions extensively in Chapter 3.

TABLE B.1
Organizations in Washington working on issues related to unemployment/jobs

1	AFL-CIO Working America
2	AFL-CIO Working for America Institute
3	American Historical Association
4	American Industrial Hygiene Association
5	American Public Human Services Association
6	American Society for Training and Development
7	American Youth Work Center
8	Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired
9	Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs
10	Association of Women in International Trade
11	Best Buddies International
12	Business and Professional Women’s Foundation
13	Center for Intercultural Education and Development
14	Center for Neighborhood Enterprise
15	Children’s Defense Fund
16	Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
17	Employee Assistance Professionals Association
18	Experience Works, Inc.
19	Federally Employed Women
20	Foundation for International Community Assistance
21	Good Jobs First
22	Goodwill Industries International
23	Gray Panthers
24	International Economic Development Council
25	Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
26	National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
27	National Association of Hispanic Journalists
28	National Association of Negro Business and Professional Womens Clubs, Inc.
29	National Association of State Workforce Agencies
30	National Association of Workforce Boards
31	National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare
32	National Council of Women’s Organizations
33	National Glass Association
34	National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Workforce Development Programs
35	National Investor Relations Institute
36	National Press Club
37	National Rehabilitation Association
38	National Urban League, Policy Institute
39	Noncommissioned Officers Association, National Capital Office
40	Organization for International Investment
41	Patriot Majority
42	Security Industry Association
43	Service Employees International Union
44	Society for Marketing Professional Services
45	The Wildlife Society
46	U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Institute for a Competitive Workforce
47	U.S. Conference of Mayors, Workforce Development
48	United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America
49	Urban Institute
50	White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
51	Wider Opportunities for Women
52	Women for Women International
53	Women in Government Relations
54	Women in International Security
55	Working for Us PAC

Note: Results based on Washington Information Directory search.

Turning to the cost of health care (in Table B.2), the first thing to note is how short the list is relative to the jobs and retirement security lists (despite the explosive growth in the health care industry in recent decades). The reason for this is twofold—this search did not include Medicare (which I include as part of retirement security), and my keyword searches only included the cost of health care and not health care more generally.⁶ Looking at the groups in the table, we again see that most are occupational, which is perhaps not surprising given the enormous size of the health care industry in the United States. However, a few groups on the list do mobilize and educate individual citizens around the cost of health care, including the Alliance for Retired Americans, Gray Panthers, and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Although each of these groups advocates health care positions that directly affect millions of Americans (for example, the NAACP strongly opposed cuts to Medicaid programs in 2011), broadly speaking their missions are such that they focus their efforts on programs that directly affect a select part of the population (seniors or African Americans). There is one other mass-membership group on the list: the Health Research Group, which is part of Public Citizen. Public Citizen’s advocacy work has made it one of the most well-known citizen groups in the country across a wide variety of issues. Although it is true that Public Citizen advocates single-payer health care to reduce insecurity arising from health care costs, the large focus of its health program is on the safety of health care delivery and products.⁷

TABLE B.2
Organizations in Washington working on issues related to the cost of health care

1	Alliance for Health Reform
2	Alliance for Retired Americans
3	America’s Health Insurance Plans
4	American Clinical Laboratory Association
5	Catholic Health Association of the United States
6	Center for Studying Health System Change
7	Council for Affordable Health Insurance
8	Federation of American Hospitals
9	Gray Panthers
10	Health Policy Institute
11	Health Volunteers Overseas
12	Healthcare Leadership Council
13	Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace
14	International Eye Foundation
15	National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
16	National Association of Manufacturers, Human Resources Policy
17	National Business Group on Health
18	National Coalition on Health Care
19	Patriot Majority
20	Pharmaceutical Care Management Association
21	Public Citizen Health Research Group
22	Society of Professional Benefit Administrators
23	Urban Institute

Note: Results based on Washington Information Directory search.

TABLE B.3
Organizations in Washington working on issues related to the cost of retirement (including Social Security and Medicare)

1	AARP
2	AFL-CIO Working America
3	Alliance for Retired Americans
4	American Benefits Council
5	American College of Emergency Physicians, Public Affairs
6	American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
7	American Society of Pension Professional and Actuaries
8	Americans for Prosperity Foundation
9	Americans for Secure Retirement
10	Association for Advanced Life Underwriting
11	Association of the U.S. Navy
12	Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association
13	Center for Economic and Policy Research
14	Center for Studying Health System Change
15	Club for Growth Action
16	Coalition to Preserve Retirement Security
17	Concord Coalition
18	Council of Institutional Investors
19	Employee Benefit Research Institute
20	Employers Council on Flexible Compensation
21	ERISA Industry Committee
22	EX-POSE, Ex-Partners of Servicemembers for Equality
23	Families USA
24	Federal Bar Association
25	Federation of American Hospitals
26	Galen Institute
27	Gray Panthers
28	Independent Women’s Forum
29	National Academy of Social Insurance
30	National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association
31	National Association for Home Care and Hospice
32	National Association of Counties
33	National Association of Manufacturers, Human Resources Policy
34	National Business Group on Health
35	National Center for Policy Analysis
36	National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
37	National Council of Women’s Organizations
38	National Farmers Union (Farms Educational and Cooperative Union of America)
39	National Senior Citizens Law Center
40	NEA Fund for Children and Public Education (NEA Advocacy Fund)
41	OWL: The Voice of Midlife and Older Women
42	Pension Rights Center
43	Public Citizen, Health Research Group
44	Seniors Coalition
45	Society of Professional Benefit Administrators
46	The Brookings Institution, Economic Studies Program
47	United Mine Workers of America Health and Retirement Funds
48	Urban Institute
49	Urban Institute, the Health Policy Center
50	Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement

Note: Results based on Washington Information Directory search.

When it comes to issues of retirement insecurity, I already mentioned that the list in Table B.3 includes four of the largest mass-membership organizations that advocate on such issues. AARP, the most well-known group, is also the largest mass-membership organization in the United States with approximately forty million members aged fifty and over. The Alliance for Retired Americans, Gray Panthers, and National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare are all much smaller organizations that recruit individuals to join (and lobby on their behalf in Washington) based on issues related to retirement insecurity. Beyond those are several groups from across the ideological spectrum that recruit and/or maintain contact with sizable membership bases, all with the broadly stated goal of financial security in old age (sometimes among other goals). These include Working America, Americans for Prosperity, the Coalition to Preserve Retirement Security, the Concord Coalition, Families USA, Independent Women’s Forum, OWL, the Pension Rights Center, the Seniors Coalition (which bills itself as the “responsible alternative to AARP”), and the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement.⁸ Other groups, such as Americans for Secure Retirement (an organization that advocates annuities to achieve a steady income in old age) and the Coalition to Preserve Retirement Security (which resists attempts to mandate that public employees and their workers participate in Social Security as opposed to other public-sector retirement plans), are certainly interested in issues related to retirement security, but their members are organizations and associations rather than individuals.

TABLE B.4
Organizations in Washington working on issues related to the cost of (higher) education

1	American Association of Colleges of Nursing
2	American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers
3	American Association of State Colleges and Universities
4	American Council of Trustees and Alumni
5	American Indian Higher Education Consortium
6	College Board, Advocacy, Government Relations, and Development
7	College Parents of America
8	Council of Independent Colleges
9	Education Finance Council
10	Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities
11	National Association for College Admission Counseling
12	National Association of College and University Business Officers
13	National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs
14	Student Aid Alliance

Note: Results based on Washington Information Directory search.

When seniors join mass-membership groups, they are generally spending time rather than money. From a monetary perspective, it is hard to argue that groups like AARP face great difficulty recruiting members. Yet it’s important to acknowledge that paying membership dues also allows people to take advantage of products that are available only to AARP members, such as AARP-branded life insurance, health care, and financial service programs. Thus it is quite likely that many people who become AARP members (but do not subsequently spend time responding to political calls to action) may not see themselves as having made a “political donation.” In fact, in 2011 AARP received over two and a half times as much revenue from royalties from such products than it did from membership dues. As Gilens notes in his study of the American government’s responsiveness to poor and middle-income Americans, “the extent to which [AARP’s] positions are constrained by and reflective of its members’ policy preferences is much weaker than it is for pure mass-membership advocacy groups like the Sierra Club or the ACLU.”9 Indeed, there are famous examples of AARP endorsing legislation that led to huge protests by senior citizens, most notably the 1988 Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act mentioned in Chapter 5. As one longtime congressional aide reported after the act was repealed, “The AARP lobbyists are still very credible … but while there once would have been a willingness to accept whatever AARP said about an issue, now everybody checks everything three times from Sunday.”¹⁰

Lastly, with respect to the cost of education, as with jobs and health care costs, again we see that the majority of the groups are organized based on occupational or professional grounds. Of the fourteen groups in Table B.4, only one is a mass-membership organization that recruits individuals around issues associated with the cost of college. This is the College Parents of America, a mass-membership organization comprised of current and future college parents, which is also the only organization on my list whose members are likely paying for college itself (as opposed to colleges and universities and/or college professionals). It is an avowedly nonpolitical organization, however, and thus as of this writing was not engaging in lobbying on these topics.

Looking at the rest of the education list, there are other groups that have as one of their primary goals the availability and expansion of student aid, but none has the express purpose of being an organized voice for those paying the bills. For instance, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities both have an interest in promoting generous financial aid policies at the federal level, but their express purpose is not to represent individual families that might wish the cost was lower so that they needed less aid in the first place. The Education Finance Council represents the nation’s nonprofit student loan providers, who again given the nature of their business have an interest in making student loans widely available. Lastly, the Student Aid Alliance is also composed of organizations such as universities and other collegiate associations that are trying to maintain and expand student aid programs. To be sure, Gilens does find that the policy preferences of universities on average are highly correlated with those of poor and middle-class Americans, but he also notes that they are not engaged in most issues of national policy.11

Having gone through the lists for the four issues, one thing to note is that U.S. PIRG and ACSCAN did not come up. The reason likely stems from the fact that my method only includes groups that consider these issues to be important enough that they would appear in a somewhat brief (typically twenty to fifty word) description in the WID. The fact that they do not appear in Tables B.1–B.4 reinforces the point I made earlier about how these are multi-issue groups and economic insecurity issues are not necessarily their top priority.

Overall, my investigation of the Washington, D.C. interest group community leads to a major conclusion that parallels what Schlozman, Verba, and Brady found: with the exception of seniors and retirement security, “those who are on the middle and lower rungs of the economic ladder, many of whom have experienced heightened economic insecurity over the past few decades … have no Washington representation by groups organized around such joint non–occupationally defined economic interests.”¹² This means that if you are an individual citizen concerned about involuntary job loss, medical payments in the case of injury, or heightened college costs or you are a younger American concerned about retirement insecurity, then any national-level organization that mobilized you around these issues was probably not founded with the expressed purpose of representing the entire set of people facing that issue. That is why, when I was designing the experiments in Chapter 5 using national-level groups, my attention was focused on using multiissue groups such as U.S. PIRG and ACSCAN.