Because cost of living varies from area to area?
$25,100 wouldn't cover rent in Manhattan for a year.
$25,100 would make you an aristocrat in an Arkansas trailer park for life.
But they don't have that kind of money, now do they?
Getting drunk at the 'Okie chalet enclave' in Tornado Alley (For the millionth time: Jesus isn't going to swoop down and save you in the next Blizzard of Oz, you dumbasses. Bricks. Use them already.) whining about how the darkies in the big cities up North are taking 'your' entitlements away which solely you are entitled to because you're still going through the pangs of Reconstruction after the end of the War of Northern Aggression 153 years later and the Negros aren't picking your cotton and tobacco for you so therefore your dole dependent terminally anemic economy is still coughing away hardly makes you at par with even the poorest in Western Europe.
Speaking of Manhattan. Try giving a speech without paying for permits, insurance, and security in Washington Square Park, the old birthplace of many a movement back in the day. They'll haul your stupid ass to jail, son.