My son goes to college in Rochester. Many affluent upstate cities are university towns with a smattering of high tech and biotech firms. Farming is the rest of the area. If you farm or have a tech college degree, you have a chance for a job. If you are blue collar worker, forget about it. Taxes, regs, environmental laws and PC laws are driving out manufacturing. One factory employs more people then 10 small start up biotech firms. That is what the liberal elites fail to understand when they envision a socialist star trek world.
You seem to think results matter. Results are not relevant. Only high minded liberal ideology matters. So what if we are all poor? At least we will all be equally poor.