This week, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney admitted that he is “not concerned about the very poor,” a jarring sentiment that nonetheless seems to encapsulate the Republican party’s view of income inequality. Be it through budget cuts, tax breaks, or prejudicial eligibility requirements for government benefits, members of the GOP are prioritizing America’s wealthy at the expense of America’s most vulnerable.

There are some Republicans, however, who aren’t subscribing to this agenda. According to a new poll, a majority of low-income Republicans believe that the America’s economic system unfairly favors the wealthy and that the government does not do enough to help the poor:

In a Pew Research Center survey conducted in early October, 57% of lower-income Republican and Republican-leaning voters said the government does too little for poor people. Just 18% said it does too much.

By contrast, higher-income Republicans took the opposite view; by roughly two-to-one (44% to 21%) Republicans with incomes of $75,000 or more said the government does too much, not too little, for poor people.

Indeed, while sharing the public’s general distrust of the government, 70 percent of low-income Republicans agree with the 99 percent movement that “a few rich people and corporations have too much power in the U.S.” And given that nearly half of all Americans are one financial shock away from falling into poverty, it is no wonder that even Republicans are questioning their party’s priorities.

Sunday marked the third anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first legislation signed into law by President Obama. The law, which expanded the statute of limitations on fair pay lawsuits, was a response to a Supreme Court ruling against Ledbetter in her fair pay case.

Though the law expanded the legal remedies available to women who have been victims of discriminatory pay, little has been done to address the pay gap that exists between male and female employees. Since the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed into law, the pay gap has closed at less than half-a-cent per year. That trend is continuing, as the pay gap barely closed from 2009 to 2010.

Women made 77 percent of men’s earnings in 2009, the year the law passed. In 2010, that was virtually unchanged, as women’s wages rose to 77.4 percent of men’s. The gap is even larger for African Americans and Latinos: black women made 67.5 percent of all men’s earnings in 2009, while Latino women made 57.7 percent. In 2010, those figures ticked up to 67.7 percent and 58.7 percent, respectively.

Women make up half of the American workforce, and in two-thirds of American families, the mother is the primary breadwinner or a co-breadwinner. But they make less than their male counterparts in all 50 states, though the size of each state’s wage gap varies. While the gap continues to close in places like Washington, D.C., where women make 91.8 percent of men’s earnings, it is growing in others, like Wyoming, where women’s earnings dropped from 65.5 percent of men’s in 2009 to just 63.8 percent in 2010.

Because of the gender pay gap, women with the same education doing the same job as men earn far less over their working lifetimes. The wage gap costs $723,000 over a 40-year career for women with college degrees. In some industries, the gap can cost women close to a million dollars.

In November 2010, Senate Republicans killed efforts to close the pay gap when they unanimously voted to block the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have updated the Equal Pay Act, closed many of its loopholes, and strengthened incentives to prevent pay discrimination.

Last night in his State of the Union address, President Obama once again urged Congress to pass the Buffett rule, noting that 25 percent of American millionaires pay less in taxes that millions of families in the middle-class. Republicans were quick to dismiss his request as “the politics of envy and division.” However, multi-billionaire Bill Gates called his policy something else entirely: “That’s just justice.”

In an interview with the BBC, Gates noted “taxes are going to have to go up” and thus he’d prefer that they “go up more on the rich than everyone else.” There needs to be “a sense of shared sacrifice,” he said, adding, “right now, I don’t feel like people like myself are paying as much as we should”:

GATES: Well the United States has a huge budget deficit, so taxes are going to have to go up. And I certainly agree that they should go up more on the rich than everyone else. That’s just justice.

BBC HOST: Is that a message you think that works with other people as wealthy as yourself, or is it just a small circle of friends — yourself, Warren Buffet, a few others.

GATES: Well, I hope we can solve that deficit problem with a sense of shared sacrifice — where everybody would feel like they’re doing their part. And right now, I don’t feel like people like myself are paying as much as we should.

Watch it:

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has declared that people with Gates’ view are just riddled with “envy.” But considering that Gates’ wealth dwarfs Romney’s millions, it’s highly doubtful that Gates is envious. He, like an increasing number of millionaires, just views paying his fair share as the right thing to do.

In his State of the State address yesterday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) announced his plan to institute a 10 percent tax cut across all income tax brackets. Celebrating his rather draconian budget cuts over the past two years, Christie said, “because we have put our fiscal house in order, we can budget for our priorities and give tax relief to all of our people.”

Not surprisingly, this tax cut will benefit the wealthy significantly more. While a family making $600,000 would keep $4,000 of their income, a middle-class family making $50,000 would save only $130:

High-income families would get the biggest boost from his proposed tax cut. Families making more than $500,000 now pay just under 9 percent of their incomes in state taxes. Under Christie’s plan, the highest rate would drop to just over 8 percent, meaning that the annual state income tax paid by a family with $600,000 in taxable income would drop from about $39,000 to around $35,000.

A family making $50,000 would see its tax bill fall from about $1,270 to about $1,140.

Noting that millionaires would reap $7,200 from the tax cut, New Jersey Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D) said, “A 10 percent across-the-board income tax cut might make a nice sound bit, but ultimately it benefits the wealthiest far more than low and middle income earners.” State Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D) just called it “a B.S. tax cut.” “This is another windfall for multi-millionaires at the expense of schools, because that’s where the money comes from,” he said.

Indeed, Christie took an $820 billion bite out of public education in 2010, a cut so severe that it violated the state’s constitution. Christie merely labeled the court “crazy” and complained that he had no way of balancing the budget without gutting education, even when atwo percent tax increase on millionaires would completely plug the hole.

Even now, Christie has not mentioned how he plans to pay for the 10 percent income tax cut that could cost the state over $1.1 billion. But he still managed to blast the state Supreme Court regarding his education cuts. He called on the court to “admit” that its ruling “requiring poor, often urban schools to get increased funding was ‘a failure‘ because pupil performance at those schools has not improved.” Judging by his past and future plans, neither has the governor’s.

Our guest blogger is Sarah Jane Glynn, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Understandably, in today’s economic climate any job is often perceived as better than no job at all. After all, unemployment remains at 8.5 percent, and 8.1 million people are involuntarily working part-time because their hours have been cut or they cannot find full-time work.

But while getting people back to work is an important goal, it is also important that workers be employed in positions where they can earn a living wage and receive benefits.

Case in point, nearly a quarter of a million jobs were added in the retail trade in 2011, and retail is projected to be one of the fastest growing industries though 2018. According to the National Retail Federation, “Retail Means Jobs,” as the industry supports 1 in 4 jobs in America.

On the surface this looks very promising. But a new report released by City University of New York and the Retail Action Project illustrates how the wages and working conditions of retail workers in New York City are often less than ideal — especially for women and people of color.

They surveyed retail workers in New York City — a major retail hub in the United States — and the findings of their study are stark. While about one-third of the survey respondents were economically supporting at least one family member, the median wage was only $9.50 an hour, with about 12 percent earning only the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

More than half of the retail workers surveyed were employed part-time, with only 29 percent receiving health benefits, and only 44 percent were entitled to paid sick days. Of those workers who did not receive health benefits from their employer, a quarter had no health insurance and slightly more than a third depended on government programs like Medicaid.

The findings were even more disheartening for women and people of color employed in retail, particularly given the fact that they comprise the majority of the workforce. Women earned less money, were more likely to be employed part-time, were less likely to have health coverage, and were less likely to be offered promotions than men. Read more

Yesterday, 2012 GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney dismissed those concerned with the nation’s growing income inequality (which may be worse than the inequality in Ancient Rome) by saying such concerns are “about envy.” “I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like. But the president has made it part of his campaign rally,” Romney said. “It’s a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach and I think it will fail.”

However, there are real negative consequences to income inequality. Studies have shown that inequality can severely restrict economic growth. Today, ThinkProgress asked Alan Krueger, chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, to respond to Romney’s assertions. Krueger replied by noting that addressing income inequality is “not about envy at all,” but about ensuring that all segments of the population share in economic growth:

The trends that have taken place in the U.S. over the last three decades are particularly of concern to economists and others. We’ve seen a steady decline, erosion, in the size of the middle class. That’s not good for the economy. That’s not good for all segments of American society. And I think some of [the government's] policies have exacerbated that…There are certainly legitimate policy issues, and as the President’s economic adviser, it’s certainly something that we’re focused on. I don’t think this is an issue about envy at all. I think we’d like to see all segments of society do well. The President has said ‘when all Americans do well, America does well.’ The accumulating evidence suggests that the erosion of the middle class has been bad for the economy.

Watch it:

According to Krueger, the shift in income inequality over the last three decades is the equivalent of moving $1.1 trillion of income from the 99 percent to the top 1 percent every single year. This has led to a severe shrinking of the middle class:

Romney though, would prefer that these facts stay in “quiet rooms,” rather than be discussed by lawmakers and the public.

As GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney begins to solidify his frontrunner status, his pitch as the “business” candidate who understands the “real economy” is faltering under heavier scrutiny of his time at Bain Capital. As CEO of the private equity firm, Romney “maximized returns by firing workers, seeking government subsidies, and flipping companies quickly for large profits” while a significant number of those companies went bankrupt and thousands of workers lost their jobs. “Make a profit. That’s the name of the game, right?” he said.

Now even members of his own party are damning the callous nature of his work. Chafing from the criticism, Romney blasted his “desperate” opponents yesterday for joining President Obama in “put[ting] free enterprise on trial” and engaging in “the bitter politics of envy.”

This morning on the Today Show, host Matt Lauer asked Romney — twice — whether he truly believed any questions regarding the practices of Wall Street or the distribution of wealth and power is merely “envious” or more about “fairness.” Both times, Romney insisted that it was solely an “envy-oriented” attack on “millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street”:

LAUER: When you said that we already have a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy, I’m curious about the word ‘envy.’ Did you suggest that anyone who questions the policies and practices of Wall Street and financial institutions, anyone who has questions about the distribution of wealth and power in this country, is envious? Is it about jealousy, or fairness?

ROMNEY: You know, I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare. When you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on the 99 percent versus one percent — and those people who have been most successful will be in the one percent — you have opened up a whole new wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God. The American people, I believe in the final analysis, will reject it.

LAUER: Yeah but envy? Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as ‘envy,’ though?

ROMNEY: I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like. But the president has made it part of his campaign rally. Everywhere he goes we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It’s a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach and I think it will fail.

Watch it:

The exchange is indeed shocking in what it reveals. In a time when income inequality is at its worst level since the Great Depression and Americans are increasingly concerned over the shrinking middle class, Romney is insisting that anyone who questions — let alone tries to reform — the unfair advantages of the extremely wealthy or the destructive practices of the financial industry that single-handedly shoved America into a recession is nothing more than “envious” of these people’s success.

Perhaps his answer shouldn’t be so surprising given how myopic the view is from his high perch. Romney is, after all, a millionaire who is still making money from the predatory equity firm while paying little in taxes and owes much of his political viability to Wall Street’s pocketbook. Indeed, he suggested the public office should be the province of rich people. Perhaps he’s just defending his own.

As the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent points out, “Romney was twice given a chance to nod in the direction of saying that concerns about these problems have at least some legitimacy to them, that they are about something more than mere envy or class warfare, and that they are deserving of a public debate. And this is the answer he gave.” Fellow candidate Newt Gingrich had another description for Romney’s answer: “baloney.”