There's a near absolute vacuum in the D vocab when it comes to poverty. And all the blather about the "Middle Class" rings hollow to many people because wages are still flat/shrinking, food prices keep rising, and too many with a job feel poor and/or are terrified that they are on the edge of poor.
The Ds can't offend their corporate paymasters, so nothing real happens.
The Rs will step into that vacuum and the inaction/pusillanimity of the Ds will cede it to them. And people will believe them. That's why R-money was floating his anti-poverty rhetoric. The only reason he stepped down is because the real money is going to Jeb this time around - and watch, Jeb will get all concerned too.
My own House of Labor is just as bad ... but we're talking about Ds here, and the headline below should say "what the AFL-CIO and Elizabeth Warren did not say about raising wages"
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-labor-movement-and-low-wages-in-america-what-the-afl-cio-did-not-say-about-raising-wages/5426743
In any case, Warren had nothing to say about creating a mass movement because the Democratic Party, to which she belongs, flatly rejects them. Mass movements can easily take on a life of their own and escape the control of those who initiate them, including the Democrats, who see the masses as objects of manipulation, not comrades in arms.
Worse yet, Warren failed to suggest any number that would constitute an appropriate raise. This failure was not accidental. The Democrats will have nothing to do with a $15 minimum wage because their handlers, the 1%, as a rule firmly reject it. Raises, after all, come out of their profit margins. Consequently, President Obama has proposed a pathetic federal minimum wage of $10.10. Democratic Governor Jerry Brown of California recently signed legislation that will raise the state minimum wage to $10 by 2016. Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York just recently proposed a $10.50 minimum wage for New York State by 2016 and $11.50 for New York City. None of these proposals has excited mass movements.
Warren’s failure to raise any demands, which is the first indispensable step to creating a movement, of course, invokes Frederick Douglass’ famous comment, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.” But as a former Harvard Professor, Warren was probably aware of this.
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