Mock The Poor -- The Conservative Media Solution To Poverty

War On PoorAs fast food workers in 7 cities walked the picket line fighting for better wages and working conditions the conservative media turned its focus towards a solution to help lift up our working men and women out of poverty -- mock them.

To respond to the day long strike, Fox trotted out Richard Berman, failing to identify him as a highly paid consultant to the food and beverage industry. He proceeded to threaten fast food workers, claiming if they demanded incomes allowing them to live above the poverty line, the only solution would be to replace them with iPads.

On Your World with Neil Cavuto, Fox Business's Charles Payne claimed that the striking workers' demand for a living wage was akin to rewarding “mediocrity.”

From an air conditioned studio in Rockefeller Center, the handsomely compensated Fox contributor asserted that a wage of $15 per hour earned spending countless hours on your feet without a break, in front of a hot stove, serving hundreds of customers, would be “cursing” those workers, ridding them of the impetus to “get better,” “go to college,” or “improve” their lot in life.

At the luxurious wage of $15 per hour minimum wage workers would spend their days “play[ing] video games” and “hav[ing] large families.”

Payne, who has a long history of suggesting that the poor live in comfort, that our social safety net keeps people in poverty, and that there needs to be more "stigma" surrounding food stamps, represents the conservative id surrounding the issue of poverty.

While 4 in 5 Americans will “struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives,” the right believes the solution to all of their problems is scorn.