Gov. Cuomo said something odd recently. Speaking to reporters at a rally for raising the state’s minimum wage, the governor said he is uncomfortable with the term “income inequality.”

Cuomo has used this term before, including as recently as May 6 when The New York Times ran an op-ed by him calling for higher wages for fast-food workers. “Income inequality is a national problem that leaders at all levels of government are grappling with,” the governor wrote.

Now, six weeks later, he eschews the term.

Considering that most economists and a growing number of politicians agree that widening income inequality is a defining issue of our time, it’s fair to ask why the governor suddenly doesn’t want to talk about it.

Cuomo told reporters the phrase income inequality “suggests you don’t like the rich people.” He added, “We never said we were all going to have equal incomes.”

His statements cynically misrepresent concerns about the growing inequality in New York State and the United States. The problem isn’t that incomes vary or that some people are rich while others aren’t. The issue is that wealth is increasingly concentrated among a very few at the top while the wages of the vast majority have stagnated or fallen.

Cuomo undoubtedly knows these facts. But it works for him politically to obfuscate the issue. He doesn’t want to upset the billionaires who financed his re-election. They are the ones who benefit from the growing concentration of wealth.

Language matters. By refusing to speak about income inequality, Cuomo is denying a core and critical problem that constricts the life choices available to millions of New Yorkers and harms the future economic prospects of our state.