Rich-Poor Gap Widest in Republican-Leaning States, Census Shows
Source: Bloomberg via Yahoo
"The gap between the rich and poor in the U.S. is concentrated most heavily across a large swath of the South and was least apparent in the Midwest, according to a Census Bureau report released yesterday.
Six of the 10 counties with the highest income disparity were in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina, all states with Republican governors that usually back the party's presidential candidates.
The report, covering the years 2006-2010, highlights the paradox of the wealth gap as a political issue between voters in so-called red states that tend to vote Republican and blue states that lean Democratic. A 2007 study found that while inequality is more evident in poor states such as Mississippi, voters there largely favor Republican candidates. In wealthier states, they're more likely to back the other major party.
"In a Democratic state like New York, rich people are a little more conservative than the poor people, but they're socially liberal," Andrew Gelman, a Columbia University political scientist and statistician who led that study, said in a telephone interview. "In a state like Texas, the rich aren't really that conflicted."
much more.
Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/rich-poor-gap-widest-republican-050015465.html
Yep - voting against their best interests. It's what Republicans often do!
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What I find most noxious is the hi-jacking of language, most notably the word "entitlement." Ownership itself is the very embodiment of the word entitlement, which refers solely to a power or 'right' conferred by a Title - which is a legal fiction created solely by law (or fiat) and enforced by the state. We are all familiar with the terms "King" and "Prince" and "Baron" (all titles) ... and we're all familiar with a Title to land or real estate, or even our vehicles. What we seem to disconnect on, mentally, is that they're the very things to which we refer when we use the term entitlement. While the use of that term in reference to Social Security is, in fact, technically correct, it's the far more inequitable powers enforced by the State that lend a negative connotation to the term.
Nowhere is this inequity more evident in today's economy than in the "lion's share" (i.e. might makes right) extracted from an enterprise by the "owner" -- or shareholders. Today's S&P500 corporation distributes more than twice as much of its net income to the 'owners' than it does to those by whose labors such income was created. Yes, Virginia, the workers get less than 30% of the wealth they create in today's corporation. (And the NBA players went on strike because their share was less than 50%!!! Imagine that! Organized labor.)
New York city is the worlds most "favored" city. The upper 1% in the entire world gravitate to it as the industrial/cultural mecca of the world. People of modest means find it very difficult to afford to live there, therefor it is not surprising that there is a greater "income gap" there. 
