"The Fat-Cat Quotient" - How Many Poor Families Can Mitt Romney Afford On His 2011 Speaking Fee Income Alone?

Today's post is brought to you by guest blogger Mike from They'll Say Anything!  We are very glad to have him.

Mitt's definitely winning the class war. Based on the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) 2011 Poverty Guidelines, last year he could have financed as many as 34 families of eight with his 2011 speaking fees income alone. These HHS poverty guidelines are used in various ways by the federal government to determine eligibility for certain federal programs - important ones, like Head Start; Migrant Health Services; the National School Lunch Program; and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Although many federal programs do not use the HHS poverty guidelines to establish eligibility - for example, TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) - the HHS poverty guidelines serve well as a standard of measurement of the national income inequality gap.

And that's what The Fat-Cat Quotient (FCQ) is all about! It's a new way to measure income inequality. The FCQ uses the official HHS poverty guidelines to visualize the income gap in our nation. No econometrics needed; the math is simple. I hope the FCQ gets around. It gives yet another answer to those who ask, "Why do you envious haters use the term 'class warfare'"? . . . . . .