Why Democrats talk about income inequality not poverty

The poor in America are so well off that Democrats can no longer complain about poverty but must concentrate on income inequality.

In America 64% of the "poor" have either cable or satellite TV. Today 80% of the poor have air conditioning while in 1970 only 36% of all Americans had air conditioning.  More than 50% of poor families with children have a video game system.

More importantly 96% of poor people with children said that their kids were never hungry because they couldn't afford food.

The reality is that the massive welfare spending has made poverty quite livable in America today.

It's true that there are some who suffer due to mental illness, drug use, etc but the reality is that being poor in America today is better than being middle class in most of the world.

That's why you hear farmers saying that they can't hire Americans to do back breaking work for low wages; with such welfare wealth Americans would have to be hyper dedicated to take farming jobs.

Hence Democrats have to invoke envy; it's wrong that hard working diligent responsible people have more money than high school dropouts who smoke weed every day.

The simple reality is that one's economic worth, as opposed to one's worth as a human being, depends on how unique your skills are and how in demand those skills are.  If you can program computers you will generally be paid a good salary compared to what you'd get if your only job skill is asking "do you want fries with that?".

Similarly a college degree in gender studies is a ticket to job insecurity and low pay compared to say being a licensed welder.

But the left is made up of people who don't think they should have to work very hard or very rich people who feel guilty about being so rich.  Hence they demand equality of results. They want the high school dropout who shows up for work late and who has no useful job skills to have the same quality of life as someone who graduated from High School and then became a carpenter.

That's why Democrats are pushing for "income security" for people who are able to work but who don't feel like working.

We have an obligation to break down artificial barriers to success, such as the government demanding that a woman take a huge number of courses to be legally allowed to braid hair, but we not only aren't obliged but in fact we're morally prohibited from stealing from successful hard working people to subsidize a high quality of life for those who are too lazy to work.