Income inequality is not as high a priority to President Obama as it once was according to Democratic insiders, but why would this be case if the 2014 mid-term elections are right around the corner?
In a related report by The Inquisitr , one income inequality activist is being accused of hypocrisy since he makes $200,000 a year based upon teaching just one class. Others felt the same about an anonymous bad tipper who wrote a letter stating that he or she refused to tip waitresses because the practice supports income inequality due to the minimum wage laws.
The median household income in America has dropped by thousands of dollars, and 95 percent of income gains made from 2009 to 2012 were made by the top one percent of the earning population. Because of these facts, it was not that long ago that Obama’s income inequality speeches were regularly targeting Republicans for the woes of the middle class:
“The folks in the middle and at the bottom haven’t seen wage or income growth, not just over the last three, four years, but over the last 15 years…. There’s no serious economist out there that would suggest that, if you took the Republican agenda of slashing education further, slashing Medicare further, slashing research and development further, slashing investments in infrastructure further, that that would reverse some of these trends of inequality.”
But due to political reasons, some Democrats have given up their rhetoric when it comes to certain key political issues. For example, the 2014 unemployment extension has been dropped by Democrats who believe it’s not worth discussing any more in comparison to other issues.
Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, thinks the same thing has occurred for income inequality and the White House:
“It was clear in 2013 that income inequality was the top narrative for the White House, but they abruptly switched away from it.”
Part of the reason for this shift is that public polling data shows that complaints about income inequality “don’t really register with the public and lead to complaints about class warfare.” In order to avoid internal division over populism, Democrats have put the issue “on the back burner now — at least in terms of their rhetoric.”
New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer says that Americans could not care less about the redistribution of wealth. and instead want to see their representatives focus on initiatives that would specifically benefit them individually:
“Both the White House and the Senate agreed that the decline of middle-class incomes was the most serious issue we face in this country, but the focus had to be on how to get middle-class incomes up, rather than drive other people’s incomes down. There are some who believe it’s better to talk about the negative parts of wealth that people have accumulated, but our polling data show people care less about that and more about how we’re going to help them.”
How do you think President Obama should tackle the problem of income inequality in America?