Why We Fight

Today's rant is brought to you by the letter F (as in GIVE ME AN F!).

From one of my fav Facebook posters:

One of my favorite lines: "Oh, I'm not one of those whackjob Republicans. I sorta take climate seriously, I'm in favor of same sex marriage; hell, I'm not even opposed to affirmative action. I LIKE solar, and I eat organic. See, I'm a Republican on matters of fiscal policy."

As in, presumably, today's GOP vote to red-light any increase in the minimum wage.

Well:
1. The annual pay for a full-time minimum wage worker currently sits at $14,500, which is below the poverty line for a household of more than one person.
2. Public sentiment is on the side of an increase, with 63 percent of Americans saying they would support a minimum wage hike to $10.10 per hour
3. After the recession which started in 2007, the share of total wealth owned by the top 1% of the population grew from 34.6% to 37.1%, and that owned by the top 20% of Americans grew from 85% to 87.7%.

GOP response:
* Block any increase in minimum wage
* Cut food aid to dependent children
* Oppose any additional tax increases on the 20% of Americans who own roughly 90% of the nation's wealth.

"I'm just a fiscal conservative" translates into "I don't know jack shit about how the economy really works, but being tight with money always sounds good to me."

From the article 10 States Where The Most People Live On The Edge Of Financial Ruin at Business Insider:

Overall, consumer household income has continually dropped over the the last decade, and at the same time, the costs of basic necessities like health insurance, housing, and education have continued to soar.
What has resulted is a deep divide between the rich and poor, and even more people  –– both low- and middle-income earners –– who find themselves unable to save for even short-term emergencies.

From the Assets and Opportunities Scorecard study by the Corporation for Enterprise Development

The Assets & Opportunity Scorecard is a comprehensive look at Americans’ financial security today and their opportunities to create a more prosperous future. It assesses the 50 states and the District of Columbia on 102 outcome and policy measures, which describe how well residents are faring and what states can do to help them build and protect assets. These measures are grouped into five issue areas: Financial Assets & Income, Businesses & Jobs, Housing & Homeownership, Health Care, and Education.

Across all of the outcome indicators in the Scorecard —which include Financial Assets and Income, Businesses and Jobs, Housing and Homeownership, Education and Health Care—states in the southeast and southwest fare the worst.

Read the whole report (it’s 32 pages—depressing but def worth it)

Politifact, in an attempt to prove or disprove this meme, popping up all over social media:

We're not going to rule on the cause-and-effect question posed by the posting. Yet because Red states have a reputation for being more business-friendly, and because many argue that pro-business policies lead to better lives for everyone, we wondered whether the Occupy Democrats' claim was correct.

You’d think everyone’s livin’ large in red America, wouldn’t you? I mean TRICKLE DOWN babies, trickle down! //snort// That worked well, right? WRONG!

By all three measures, 9 out of the 10 poorest states voted Republican in the last presidential election. (In fact, they voted Red in the last four elections.)
According to the latest Census data, 9 of the 10 states with the lowest per-person income levels were Red: Mississippi, Arkansas, Idaho, West Virginia, Kentucky, Utah, Alabama, South Carolina and Oklahoma.  
***snip***
By the way, 9 of the 10 states with the highest per-person income voted Blue in the 2012 presidential race: Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Virginia and Washington. The only Red state on the list: Alaska.

There are a LOT of issues to weigh so:

Ultimately, each measure of the poorest states has its drawbacks. But the supplemental poverty measure offers a reason to temper the evidence from traditional measures that demonstrate the statement to be True. For that reason, we rule the "9 in 10" claim Mostly True.

Go read the whole thing (it’s relatively short). It’s worth it.