Charts of the week: The TCJA, mid-tech jobs, and the scale of NAFTA trade

Check out this selection of charts, graphs, and maps from Brookings experts’ research.

It’s unlikely the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will have a serious effect on midterm voters

How will the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) impact the upcoming midterm elections? According to Vanessa Williamson, the short-term effects on individual voter behavior will be minimal. “It is deeply implausible that voters will behave differently due to the very small changes the TCJA made in their individual take-home pay,” she writes, though it could increase donations from the Republican Party’s donor class.

The image below illustrates public support for the TCJA and the partisan nature of the legislation. “On average, 10 percent of Democrats supported the tax bill,” Williamson notes, “while 72 percent of Republicans did.”

The U.S. trades more with NAFTA countries than with Japan, Korea, and the BRICS

As the Trump administration attempts to renegotiate parts of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada, we return to Joseph Parilla’s analysis on which states rely most heavily on NAFTA, and how U.S. firms rely on North American trade to source intermediate goods. According to Parilla, “the United States trades as much with Canada and Mexico as it does with Japan, Korea, and the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—combined.”

Geography of the United States’ mid-tech jobs

Mark Muro, Jacob Whiton, and Patrick McKenna explore how “mid-tech jobs” (tech jobs that are accessible to those without a bachelor’s degree) could help spur development in areas outside the typical tech hubs near the nation’s coasts. Below is a map of the metropolitan areas with high shares of those mid-tech jobs.