Today's headline is a list of the 10 Richest Americans. The article goes on to discribe which new billionaires moved up the ladder and which moved down. We have an idea of how billionaires live but do we have a clue how the 10 Poorest Americans live? How would we rate them? What standards would we use?How would we locate and identify the 10 poorest Americans?
It is rather simple identifying the 10 richest Americans because they are in the news all the time. We seem to glorify the rich and famous. But the fact is, this is America. When Emma Lazarus wrote these passages that were mounted on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty in 1903, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," she was writing as if she were Lady Liberty reaching out to the poorest of the poor in America.
These are very challenging times. Perhaps it would be more appropriate and educational for Americans to see how the poorest of the poor live and know how many millions have dropped into the poverty level rather than how many billionaires have moved up. Maybe more Americans will take a moment to read her poem. She knew what the Statue of Liberty symbolized.
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