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Update: Added a significant part to the start of this answer to clarify the question. The big point here is that less than 1-in-5 low-income Americans didn't vote compared to the average American. This answer explains that disaffect is the primary cause for these less-than-1-in-5 (~18.5%). ###Clarifying the question, Part 1: Only 30% less likely to vote This question's source gets its information from a graph in this report:

###Clarifying the question, Part 2: We're talking about 1/3 of the non-voting low-income Americans

###Clarifying the question, Part 3: Low-income Americans are a diverse group

###Bystanders, Disaffecteds, and Hard-Pressed Skeptics Studies have shown that significant portions of the population are disaffected. They don't tend to make much money, and they're generally not too interested in politics. The central point of this answer is that they're a large enough group to explain much of the small disparity in voting rates between low-income earners and the average American.

###Not work-scheduling problems Referring to the above graph that the numbers in the question come from, people who made less than $10,000/yr had the same voting rate as people who made $10,000-$15,000/yr. Minimum wage laws mean that no one regularly working full-time or near-full-time can fall into this category.

###Comments This issue's fairly sad because it largely observes that a significant portion of the population's given up. This is a harder issue to fix than other proposals like limited access to the polls or work conflicts.

Update: Added a significant part to the start of this answer to clarify the question. The big point here is that less than 1-in-5 low-income Americans didn't vote compared to the average American. This answer explains that disaffect is the primary cause for these less-than-1-in-5 (~18.5%).

Clarifying the question, Part 1: Only 30% less likely to vote

This question's source gets its information from a graph in this report:

Clarifying the question, Part 2: We're talking about 1/3 of the non-voting low-income Americans

Clarifying the question, Part 3: Low-income Americans are a diverse group

Bystanders, Disaffecteds, and Hard-Pressed Skeptics

Studies have shown that significant portions of the population are disaffected. They don't tend to make much money, and they're generally not too interested in politics. The central point of this answer is that they're a large enough group to explain much of the small disparity in voting rates between low-income earners and the average American.

Not work-scheduling problems

Referring to the above graph that the numbers in the question come from, people who made less than $10,000/yr had the same voting rate as people who made $10,000-$15,000/yr. Minimum wage laws mean that no one regularly working full-time or near-full-time can fall into this category.

Comments

This issue's fairly sad because it largely observes that a significant portion of the population's given up. This is a harder issue to fix than other proposals like limited access to the polls or work conflicts.

###Bystanders, Disaffecteds, and Hard-Pressed Skeptics Studies have shown that significant portions of the population are disaffected. They don't tend to much money, and they're generally not too interested in politics. The central point of this answer is that they're a large enough group to explain much of the small disparity in voting rates between low-income earners and the average American.

###Bystanders, Disaffecteds, and Hard-Pressed Skeptics Studies have shown that significant portions of the population are disaffected. They don't tend to make much money, and they're generally not too interested in politics. The central point of this answer is that they're a large enough group to explain much of the small disparity in voting rates between low-income earners and the average American.

tl;dr- People who made less than $15,000/yr were 30% less likely to vote because a significant portion of that segment of the population was disaffected. Disaffected people tend to lack an interest in both finance and politics.

tl;dr- People who made less than $15,000/yr were 30% less likely to vote because a significant portion of that segment of the population was disaffected. Disaffected people tend to lack an interest in both finance and politics, as shown by Pew Research studies cited below.