Income inequality is what splits the country. It's what causes the divisiveness. Policies which promote income equality lead to a more harmonious and healthier society.
Wealth redistribution is the easy and correct solution to the poverty problem. It's been shown to get results where conservative and libertarian dogma have failed.
Wealth redistribution is the easy and correct solution to the poverty problem.
Given that poverty is defined as income before transfers, it can't possibly be a solution. Even if you completely eliminated consumption poverty with wealth redistribution (hint: we nearly have), the official poverty rate would be unaffected. If wealth redistribution induced people to reduce their earned income, it would increase the official poverty level.
Incidentally, you should read your Scott Winship (I linked to him elsewhere in the thread). He runs similar analysis to Wilkinson and Picket, but finds much stronger correlations between single motherhood than income inequality.
> Given that poverty is defined as income before transfers . . .
I have never heard of anyone who defines it this way or cares about this definition. What most people who care about poverty care about is that the poor do not get to consume "enough" goods and services, for some level of enough. The amount they earn is of secondary interest.
People on the left generally consider this definition to be the important one and dismiss conservatives when they point out that consumption poverty is nearly a solved problem. See also the obsessive focus on income inequality rather than the much lower consumption inequality.
Don't get me wrong - I agree with you that we should define poverty this way - construct a fixed basket of goods and declare that anyone who acquires it or has the ability to do so is not poor. But I'm very much in the minority on this.
Income inequality is what splits the country. It's what causes the divisiveness. Policies which promote income equality lead to a more harmonious and healthier society.
Wealth redistribution is the easy and correct solution to the poverty problem. It's been shown to get results where conservative and libertarian dogma have failed.