Whatever happened to that conversation on “income inequality?”
Of the many things President Obama is chatterbox about these recent days, income inequality isn’t one of them. That approach is partly due to political design, partly due to longstanding shifts in public attitude. It’s not just because Congressional Democrats couldn’t push any income inequality-related bills such as a minimum wage hike or equal through a GOP-controlled Congress before the summer recess.
This was predictable. Talking up the wealth gap may sound good. But, psychologically, Americans hate being in the doldrums about the poor economic state of things, thus they hate being reminded about the poor. And as the official unemployment rate continues to slowly fall each month (refusing to account for the huge number of jobless Americans that have checked out), people are even more inclined to not give a shit about other people’s money problems. In that case, the president may have struck too much of a depressing and realistic tone that was just too hard for too many Americans to swallow. Presidents must be cheerleaders before they are soothsayers.
It’s not like we ever really wanted a conversation on inequality in the first place – even though the president clearly did. Perhaps nostalgic for a community organizer rebirth, Obama may have misread public appetite for an inequality conversation. A Pew Research poll back in December showed the income gap wasn’t that big of a deal to Americans, though we might privately hate on the mega-rich: despite the griping, only 47% of Americans cite income gaps as a huge problem compared to anywhere from 65% to nearly 85% in countries like France, Greece, Italy and Spain.
Of course, other troubles like Ukraine and the Islamic State have popped up since then, as well as political impasse back at home preoccupying White House attention. But, the income inequality debate – accentuated by proposals such as minimum wage hikes, equal pay and extending unemployment benefits – was supposed to be a centerpiece of Democratic strategy for the upcoming Congressional midterms, a way to somehow snap the party’s base back into action.
The problem is that it’s never really been clear if poor folks were a priority for voters, particularly the middle class folks who will account for the usual low voter turnout in midterm November. Let’s keep it real: poor people making under $30,000 annually, or those who were picketing your local McDonald’s for a raise, don’t vote as much as taxpayers making more than $100,000. Voter participation rates for low income voters are barely 50% compared to nearly 80% for high income earners, according to Census Bureau population surveys.
Low income people and the unemployed just don’t have a lobby like that. They don’t possess or retain teams of highly-skilled advocates and messaging flacks who can storm Capitol Hill on their behalf and drop change into campaign war chests. If that were the case, Congress would have easily passed an extension on long term unemployment benefits which expired last Christmas rather than mugging the families that really needed it.
Take a recent Fresno Bee field poll of California (largest state in the union) which showed only 48% of residents agreeing with a state increase in the wage above the $9/hour just taking affect. And, as expected, only 40% of California Whites agreed compared to 56% of African Americans and 62% of Latinos. Interestingly enough, only 57% of Democrats agreed to a hike above the $9 compared to 70% of Republicans who did not.
Don’t know about you, but even though 57% is a majority it’s not overwhelmingly large enough for Democratic Party planners to brag ahead of the midterm.
It’s not like we didn’t see that coming. Back in March, about 50% of voters told Pew they’d be more likely to vote for a Congressional candidate who supported a minimum wage hike compared to 19% who would not and 28% who didn’t care either way. That means 47% combined wouldn’t be putting the minimum wage high on their priority list of issues to vote about.
Indifference on any issue dealing with poverty is, on many complex levels, one of our ugly pastimes. On any given day on any given street corner, we’re notoriously lacking in empathy when it comes to the needs of others less fortunate whether we mean to be or not. The president is simply outnumbered when attempting to push his sympathy agenda on a society more pressed about buying the latest smartphone than preventing social breakdown and unrest triggered by falling economic indices. When a HuffPost/YouGov poll asked in April, only 23% claimed they were tuning in to the struggle to extend unemployment benefits. It also found that experiencing unemployment prompts greater empathy for the jobless than not experiencing it: 57% who know a long-term unemployed family member want an extension compared to 41% who haven’t experienced that kind of static. And there are still a rather significant minority of Americans, 44% according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, who believe poor people not doing enough for themselves is a leading cause of poverty.
In a June YouGov poll, 36% of independents felt like a higher minimum wage would hurt workers because businesses would be too strapped to meet new salary requirements to hire. The 72% of Democrats who do support the minimum wage might be high, but add that 28% who don’t with the independents also mixed on the proposal and the income inequality.
Some of that, frankly, is also due to race. Wide ass racial divides on issues ranging from income inequality and unemployment benefits continue informing either side of the debate. Another YouGov poll discovered 82% of African Americans supported a minimum wage increase versus 67% of their White peers – a 15% gap (and a 14% gap with Latinos who are at 68% on the issue, interestingly enough). On one side, there’s the Black president who’s seen poverty first hand and on the other side there are Congressional Republicans, many from Southern and Western states that are still in denial about the alarmingly high numbers of poor Whites in their respective states and districts.
CHARLES D. ELLISON is Chief Political Correspondent for UPTOWN Magazine and a veteran political strategist. While he’s host of the weekly #Uptownhall, he’s also Washington Correspondent for the Philadelphia Tribune and a frequent contributor to TheRoot.com. He can be reached via Twitter @charlesdellison.