Of all the disgusting crap I’ve had to write about, this one takes the cake.
Where do these workers live? In 2010, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas had the largest share of people earning sub-povery wages, EPI found. Here’s a look at the 10 states with the highest share of workers making less than $23,000. I’ve also included, in the RED bars, the share of workers in each state making between $23,000 and $46,000. The upshot is that, in these ten states, between 70% and 80% of workers are earning less than $46,000.
If our democracy wasn’t broken, you could count on our representatives to vote in the interest of their largely poor constituents and work to improve their lives. But of course, it’s broken…badly. According to Sopatrack, Arkansas is not only has the third highest rate of workers in poverty, it also has the third highest rate of congressional votes in line with big money campaign contributions. Our representatives vote in favor of the issue with the most campaign contributions behind it 85% of the time, higher than the national average. Senator Pryor and Senator Boozman both vote with big money contributors 92% of the time, again proving that there’s no real difference between them. Tim Griffin, no surprise, is not far behind, voting with them 91% of the time. Mike Ross, again no surprise, votes with the big money 87% of the time. If I’m a potential Democratic candidate for governor in ’14 not named Ross I would be saving that data for a nice little campaign ad. Congressman Steve Walmart…err…Womack, votes with big money 81% of the time, and is probably pretty proud of it. After all, he’s too good to run in middle class circles. And rounding out the list, Rick Crawford, desperate to win in his now more Democratic district, votes for big money only 79% of the time.
