But Katie wrote it our in basic math on a whiteboard so everyone could understand it.

The official poverty rate for an individual, it says here on Google, is $15,650. Try living on that. Raising it would require adjustments to all sorts of social programs (including but not limited to Social Security), which would skew the budget. That is to say, it COULD very well impact military spending and interest payments on the debt, both of which benefit the wealthiest Americans bigly. Other budget items giving welfare to the rich could also be affected. That could affect the percentage return on investment that the wealthiest Americans receive by ENTIRE percentage points. Monies accruing to HUNDREDS could be less than projected! That can't happen in our system. We're a nation of individualists, after all, and we don't need no stinkin' government. The rich are rich because of their hard work and smarts, right? Those people are better than the rest of us, and God shines on them. People like Trump.

The American voting public has been conditioned by years of bogus propaganda to think that taxation is the worst thing ever. People like Trump are seen by his supporters as "heroic" for not paying taxes. They see the IRS as evil and the income tax as unconstitutional. By most measures, Americans pay a good deal less tax than their counterparts in other developed nations. We get we they pay for - comparatively little. Reagan's privatization has seen to it that ever-greater percentages of other categories of government spending go to the wealthy as well. Trump boasts at the number of jobs he cuts from the government payroll. They get replaced by lower paid workers working for some rich guy or corporation that pockets the difference. One might call it "trickle-up economics," but it's a bit more than a trickle.

Democrats could do a better job at what good taxation could do, just like they could have opposed privatization, but they seem to all be afraid of losing the propaganda battle that would ensure and the next election as result. They probably would, since they're so lousy at "messaging." Thus, all two parties avoid tax increases like the plague. Politicians greatest fears seem to be to tax the wealthy or close their tax dodges. Notice, if you wish, the reaction to the DSA and WFP on this very site. It's not just Republicans. Funny that the regressive (affecting the poor more than the rich) sales tax and increases thereto aren't seen as being anywhere near as terrible as a progressive (the better-off pay more because they've benefited from the system) income tax. It shows how well far-right economic propaganda has penetrated the citizenry,

You may consider the following if you don't share the mainstream view and want the wealthy to pay a greater share:
https://www.dsausa.org
https://workingfamilies.org

The amount you need to live on in San Francisco, for instance, is vastly greater than in many other locations simply because rents or even mortgages are so astronomically priced.
Other areas have their own challenges to name just two:
Heating vs A/C costs
Transportation of gas from refinery to car costing more or less depending on distance and geographical considerations
Some of those things may average out over a number of years, but the real test is how far the SAME dollar will get you in Louisiana or Alabama for instance, as in LA, SF, NY, or other major urban centers.
There was a reason european countries all had different currencies (and different rates of exchange) until the Euro was dreamed up. Their micro-economies reflected those differences to some extent. The US has a single poverty level across the entire country for federal means-test purposes - RIDICULOUS!
Taxation brackets are same across the entire country for supposedly the same dollar, and the federal minimum that IIRC is still $7.50/hr are utterly inadequate just about everywhere, but most certainly in the big cities.
No politician could possibly talk authoritatively about anywhere except their own location, and everyone would be saying "Ignorant fool" because that location's numbers would not match the numbers we know.
Federal policy is irredemably broken in this, and many other, aspects.

22% tax bracket