I propose to take seriously the below Jerry Falwell Jr. statement as proposition in economics rather than theology ... uh oh, I'm going multi-part here people ... 1/n
Through much of the past 150 years of US economic history, the great majority of the wealth/jobs created in the US were created precisely by the purchasing power of the (relatively) poor.
Think: Wrigley chewing gum; Duke cigarettes; S.S. Kresge five and dime; Henry Ford Model T; Samuel Goldwyn and 25 cent movie tickets ...
... unlike the artisan economies of continental Europe, the USA came to greatness as a mass production economy selling low-price goods to a vast continental market.
And this tradition continues deep into recent times. What would Sam Walton think of the proposition that poor people lack spending power worthy of attention?
But where Jerry Falwell Jr is correct is that over the past 25 years, the action in the US economy has shifted from the lower 90% to the top 1%. 
It takes a lot of 17.99 Mr. Coffee percolators to deliver the margin earned on a $4,000 Miele built-in home espresso machine
So it's probably true that poor(er) people create fewer jobs than they used to do. But that's less a statement about the inherent uselessness of poor(er) people than about other social trends and political decisions
A long time ago, William Penn promoted his then-new colony as "the best poor man's country in the world." The poor man's country invented a new kind of economy based on scope and scale. hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…
But in 21st century America, "artisanal" has become a compliment, rather than a term of derision. "Artisanal" is the exciting high-margin frontier of the US economy, not the obsolete backward edge
In his admiration for the purchasing power of the rich, Jerry Falwell Jr. may or may not be in line with the teachings of Jesus. That's not for me to say. But he's certainly in line with how the most influential 21st century Americans think about the kind of country they want
