| sc94597 said: The problem with using this assessment as the whole explanation (even if it is generally true) is that Democrats are failing to live up to promises or even to promise in the first place equitable policies in states where they do have strong and diffuse control for decades now. |
Yeah, my post was pretty much exclusively in reference to the federal government. I agree that state governments are important and need to do more (but there are also limitations and challenges which are created by the federal government system). I agree broadly though. I think one of the best examples of left-wing state governance of late is Michigan who passed a lot of great legislation when receiving a trifecta. How did that work out for them in 2024 though? I think we see voting trends more powered by national trends than local trends, but I'm not really sure.
As for Gini index, I feel that just that graph demonstrates some pretty substantial limitations. States which are more financially developed will naturally have more inequality as there will be a higher percentage of high earners and their economies will be more dependent on those high earners. This doesn't really mean that a state with lower inequality is doing better if it just means that everyone is poor (or at least, if no one is rich).
That's why imo inequality is a flawed metric without pouring huge amounts of context into it. An example of that is the Biden presidency. Gini peaked in 2021 and decreased since then and income inequality decreased, yet how did American's feel about their economic situation?
