The difference between rural and urban costs for food, shelter and transportation very dramatically.
My monthly payment for a 2000 sq ft house in a quiet but desirable city would be more than twice what rural dwellers pay for a mortgage.
Rural and suburban dwellers pay more for transportation because bus and train lines only go so far.
Food is cheap in farm country and can be not only far more expensive in the city, but food deserts in lower income areas can make it hard to get at all.
Let's flip the script; instead of complaining about how slackers don't work hard enough for their money, let's talk about corporate welfare; what about all those tax breaks that were supposed to lift the economy for everyone? They didn't. How about subsidies? Those distort the markets of their various industries in every way EXCEPT providing more good jobs.
Quite the opposite, in fact; these breaks allowed the rich to keep the money they made with the help of the rest of America's workers and infrastructure for themselves. The rest of the country has been suffering since this experiment in wealth extraction began in 1980 under Mr Reagan.
Income inequality hurts everyone, even the rich. It leads to a less prosperous and more desperate populace and a far less stable business climate.
Wealth inequality is even worse; the poor and middle class busted their ass to get what they have, and very often they have nothing to show for their efforts. What if I told you that the high school dropout slacker scion of a wealthy family is still far more likely to retire rich than you and I? Yeah, that's true.
So instead of bitching about poor people, let's go after those who have stolen our nation's prosperity, just so THEIR mansion can be bigger, THEIR yacht longer, THEIR exotic car more exclusive. All while driving the country that made their fortunes possible into the ground.
A pizza store's total cost picture wouldn't change much if the wage of their employees doubled; the price of their pizza would rise by about 10% to cover it. But if everyone made at least $15 an hour, how many more people would be able to afford eating out?
Finally, our economy is shredding jobs by the millions. Automation has been increasing output with fewer hands for a century, and robotics and intelligent software is poised to accelerate the process beyond our wildest dreams. Many jobs you'd think were safe are at real risk, like chefs, accountants and stock brokers. Right now, millions of jobs are being lost in retail as a result of automation... Never to return.
How to deal with that? Without customers, those good won't sell- so throwing millions out of work is counterproductive. Yet not everyone has the ability to retrain to be a high level knowledge worker, through no fault of their own. Do we just consign them to some human waste dump and call them useless?
The only sustainable answer is to enact some form of a Universal Basic Income, a direct transfer payment to people whether they work or not. Yeah. Welfare for EVERYONE.
What do y'all think of that?