Four percent of the members held blue-collar jobs, according to the survey, the most recent publicly available. Nearly six out of 10 D.S.A. members held professional jobs (58 percent); the remainder were students or were unemployed or disabled.
D.S.A. members were far better educated than the average American. More than 80 percent of members who were 25 years old or older had college degrees (just more than double the percentage for the United States as a whole), and 35 percent had a master’s degree, a doctorate or a professional degree (again, more than double the American average). Sixty percent identified as agnostic or atheist (with the American average, taken at its most generous, at less than half that).
In 2021 the survey found that 64 percent of members “identified as male, 27 percent as female and 10 percent as nonbinary or other” and that “L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ membership has tripled, from 10 percent in the previous two surveys to 32 percent today.”
In light of the D.S.A.’s ideological commitments and demographics, I asked Priscilla Yeverino, the D.S.A.’s national communications director, whether it was legitimate for the D.S.A. to claim the working-class mantle.
She replied:
Our organization is rooted in and led by the working class across the United States. Policies like universal health care, free college, affordable child care and higher taxes on the wealthy are overwhelmingly popular with working people.
To buttress her claims, Yeverino cited an August 22 to 24, 2025, Data for Progress survey of 1,257 likely voters, which found:
Democrats prefer democratic socialism to capitalism by a 58-point margin.
Democrats prefer left-wing political figures similar to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani over establishment politicians similar to Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi by a 20-point margin.
Democrats (+61) and independents (+9) prefer a candidate who fights for the rights of trans folks.
Our economic system is rigged and should be replaced”: +68 among Black voters, +47 among Latino voters and +42 among white voters.
It’s true, Yeverino acknowledged,
that a decade ago, when our membership was around 6,000 people, our organization looked very different. Since then, we have grown dramatically and become far more diverse, a trend that has continued even this year. Today, our 110,000 members are united by a commitment to organizing around the values, politics and policies that resonate with working-class people across the country.
She is right that Democratic voters prefer socialism to capitalism. In 2010, Gallup found that positive views of socialism among Democrats rose to 66 percent from 50 percent while positive views of capitalism fell to 42 percent from 51 percent.
