What is the middle class? For something everyone seems to be fighting for, we should be able to define it, right? The middle class isn’t poor (not the poorest anyway) or rich (not the richest anyway), but we know for sure that President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney are now fighting for its collective soul. The implications will be dire regardless of who’s in office because they both say it’ll all fall down if the other one is elected.
Politify, which we’ve written about here, has a fiscal map of the country, which can be narrowed down hyper-locally and, using data from the US Census and the IRS, seeks to determine which candidate’s plan will be better for a given community. It’s interesting to take a look at it for a few reasons. The state of Massachusetts is largely blue, meaning Politify estimates it will be benefitted more from Obama’s plan, save for a big pocket of red in the east, denoting stronger benefits from Romney’s plan. It’s interesting too for when we think about the middle class. Without defining the middle class, whose plan helps those with more money? Whose helps those with less?
If you want to try to find a more thorough definition of the middle class, the U.S. Department of Commerce takes on the task in this report from January 2010, reminding us how important it is to take into account the different kinds of households and families throughout the state and country. So consider this a rudimentary look at the map, of the entire state.
Norfolk County is largely red for instance and, according to the Census, had a median household income of $81,027 between 2006 and 2010. The rest of Massachusetts averaged $64,509. While not universal, areas with higher incomes turn up red, with lower coming up blue. Now, Romney haters would be wrong in using that as an opportunity to pounce of the Republican nominee for favoring the wealthy because in so many instances, the difference is so minute. In Medway, for instance, a part of Norfolk County, it’s 51% to 49% in Romney’s favor, which is more or less a coin flip. The point is, people are trying to paint these candidates in two extremes: Romney wants to exploit the middle class and do any and everything to make the rich richer; Obama wants to become Robin Hood, blindly robbing the rich and giving the poor the opportunity to coast on hand-me-outs. Of course, extremes are labelled as such for a reason.
Politify, which we’ve written about here, has a fiscal map of the country, which can be narrowed down hyper-locally and, using data from the US Census and the IRS, seeks to determine which candidate’s plan will be better for a given community. It’s interesting to take a look at it for a few reasons. The state of Massachusetts is largely blue, meaning Politify estimates it will be benefitted more from Obama’s plan, save for a big pocket of red in the east, denoting stronger benefits from Romney’s plan. It’s interesting too for when we think about the middle class. Without defining the middle class, whose plan helps those with more money? Whose helps those with less?
If you want to try to find a more thorough definition of the middle class, the U.S. Department of Commerce takes on the task in this report from January 2010, reminding us how important it is to take into account the different kinds of households and families throughout the state and country. So consider this a rudimentary look at the map, of the entire state.
Norfolk County is largely red for instance and, according to the Census, had a median household income of $81,027 between 2006 and 2010. The rest of Massachusetts averaged $64,509. While not universal, areas with higher incomes turn up red, with lower coming up blue. Now, Romney haters would be wrong in using that as an opportunity to pounce of the Republican nominee for favoring the wealthy because in so many instances, the difference is so minute. In Medway, for instance, a part of Norfolk County, it’s 51% to 49% in Romney’s favor, which is more or less a coin flip. The point is, people are trying to paint these candidates in two extremes: Romney wants to exploit the middle class and do any and everything to make the rich richer; Obama wants to become Robin Hood, blindly robbing the rich and giving the poor the opportunity to coast on hand-me-outs. Of course, extremes are labelled as such for a reason.