SIX years too late, President Barack Obama is proclaiming his concern for middle-class families. Politically, that makes sense: The middle class has been losing financial ground throughout Obama’s presidency. But a new analysis suggests the middle class has suffered the most in states that adopt the liberal policies Obama espouses.

Officials at 24/7 Wall St., a financial news and opinion company, examined U.S. Census Bureau state data on the average pretax income earned by each income quintile. The middle class, for the study’s purposes, included those in the third quintile, the middle 20 percent.

Nationally, from 2009 to 2013, top-quintile incomes increased by 0.4 percent, while the middle quintile’s incomes fell 4.3 percent. States were ranked based on how they fared in comparison to those national averages; 24/7 Wall St. released a list of the top 10 states “where the middle class is dying.”

The results will likely surprise the redistributionist wing of the Democratic Party. Seven of the 10 states where the middle class has experienced significant challenges have been reliable votes for Democratic presidential candidates for a generation.