29 January 2019

The Fundamental Reason Politics Will Become Kinder to the Poor

One reason that rich may be more willing to support the poor is because they are more able. I think this will change politics.

Between 2009 and 2017 the ratio of households making more than $200k a year to those making less than $10k a year rose from .54 to .94. Put differently, in 2009 each rich family would have to adopt nearly 2 poor families (1.85) whereas by 2017 they would only have to adopt 1 (1.06). (And by 2018 that was probably less than 1.0.)




In San Diego - and likely most big cities - the ratio is even better. In 2009, each poor family could get 1.18 rich families to help. By 2017, the ratio was 1.94 to one, meaning that each poor family could get 2 sponsors. It's obviously easier for two rich families to help one poor family than it is for one rich family to help two poor families. 



What does this mean? Not only are programs to help the poor more financially viable than ever, they're probably more politically viable. 

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