Live Coverage Of The First Democratic Debate

Job creation, health care and climate change are issues that Democratic voters rank higher than Republicans, according to a May Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The debate obviously still isn’t over, but health care and climate change haven’t gotten much time in the debate.

Candidates are talking about undocumented immigrants and health care right now. The undocumented don’t qualify for Medicaid (except in a few states like California, where DREAMers qualify), and aren’t allowed to buy insurance on the health insurance exchanges that were created by Obamacare. Of the 33 million people without insurance in 2014, 7 million were non-citizen immigrants (the majority of them undocumented). It’s one of the most uninsured groups in the country.

Bernie Sanders says that a college degree has become what a high-school diploma was in the middle of the 20th century. He isn’t far off. In the 1970s, about a third of American adults (ages 25-64) had less than a high school diploma; another third had a diploma and no more; and the remainder had at least a few college credits. Only about 6 percent had a bachelor’s degree or more. (All data is from the Current Population Survey, via IPUMS.) Today, just 10 percent of Americans have less than a diploma, and a third have a bachelor’s degree. Well over half of American adults have at least a few college credits. And although some question the value of a college degree, it still carries clear advantages in the labor force. Americans 25 and up with a bachelor’s degree have an unemployment rate of 2.5 percent, versus 7.9 percent for those with less than a high school diploma.