The poor are the seeds of revolution in any society, and these seeds grow by being denied, by being deprived; their discontent is fed by being starved, until that discontent grows into full scale rebellion.
Because power cannot be rehabilitated from its addiction to plunder and exploitation; because the authorities will never change their ways; they know that they themselves planted, and are cultivating the revolutions that will eventually rise up against them.
They therefore create pretexts for intensifying oppression and brutality to preempt revolutions before they happen, like the pretext of the war on terrorism. Or they promote the mutation of the revolutionary seeds so that they grow into social discord, street crime, extremism, and so on.
But anyone who is serious about revolution, and not just serious about the competition for power, knows that the poor are, and always have been, the revolutionary class; they are the reservoir that pours revolt into the society. You cannot have a revolution without them, and you cannot have them without respecting them.