Low Income Groups Favored Obama According to exit polls, "low income groups" went big for President Obama: 63 percent of voters with family income under $30,000 voted for Mr. Obama, as did 57 percent of those with income between $30,000 and $49,999. These low income voters are not just another vital minority, akin to and overlapping with the African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, young people and union members who supported Mr. Obama in large numbers. Rather, low income voters constitute a huge bloc, even a majority by some measures. According to the Tax Policy Center, roughly 60 percent of families have incomes under $50,000, with some 40 percent making under $30,000 and 20 percent making between $30,000 and $50,000. Census Bureau data show a smaller though still significant share of the population - 42 percent - in the under $50,000 category. The discrepancy is due to measurement differences. For example, the Tax Policy Center gets most of its data from tax returns and counts the income of the tax filer (and spouse, if filing jointly); the Census bureau gets its data from surveys and counts the income of everyone in a household, including roommates and teenagers. But by either measure, the under $50,000 crowd is enormous. Their numbers reflect the reality and challenge of modern economic life: With the distribution of income skewed to the top, the United States is no longer a country with an expanding middle class and broad prosperity. Instead, it is increasingly a place where families are poor or near poor or struggling to maintain a grip on the middle rungs - a state of affairs that has been tolerated and even condoned for too long. When Mr. Obama built his campaign around restoring the middle class, he was speaking to the many.