[Nrsolis]

Everyone knows that AOC was worried about the residents in her district getting priced out and moving away.

It's much less certain she could hold that seat if she was forced to listen to actual middle-class families instead of the low-income group she's representing now.

[brandmeyer]

One of the great cons in American political discourse was convincing everyone that they were middle class.

Working poor @ 30k/year? Middle class.

Technological Individual Contributors @ 200k/year? Middle class.

Small business owner with $1M in assets? Middle class.

Nowadays, every politician can claim to be enacting policies for The Middle Class (TM), and they aren't obviously lying.

[Nrsolis]

Leaving aside the fact that different regions of the countries have different levels of comparative living costs and wealth...

The simple fact is that most people ARE middle-class. The bottom income 25-30% of working-age people contribute little to nothing to income-tax receipts. The top 5% in each region have enough assets to live comfortably but carry approximately 70% of the income tax burden. When you get to the top 1%, it's something like 46% of all income-tax receipts IIRC.

So....the folks in the middle carry the burden of the rest of that load.

FWIW, My numbers are approximate but close enough for this discussion. Since tax policy most directly affects people in the middle, it's very important to get it right. Since tax policy for the very rich affects things like investment and business formation, you don't want to tax those income generators to death. For the bottom, you want them to benefit from the programs in place so they can join the ranks of the middle class and pay something back.

But you assertion that nobody (or very few) is middle class anymore I think doesn't align with the facts.

[charlesism]

    instead of the low-income group she's representing now. 

What do you consider "low-income"?

Google came up with this statistic for America: "The 2017 nominal median income per capita was $31,786."

[Nrsolis]

Remember, this is NYC. Compared to Manhattan and Brooklyn, Queens is a distant third in the running.

That’s changing. People priced out of Manhattan and Brooklyn are gentrifying Queens and it’s causing grumbling among long time residents. People see what happened to Brooklyn and don’t want to see rents rise and neighborhoods change. Compared to most other places, most residents are renters in NYC and are exposed to pricing shifts in apartments.

[product50]

Which district is this? The polls were pretty unanimous that New Yorkers and minorities were happy for Amazon to come along. AOC has her own political agenda which rejects corporate PACS etc. - don't equate that with what people in her district want.