Mea Culpa

Sometimes I feel obsessed with poverty. I don't ever really do anything about it, except think about it and write about it. But when it comes right down to it, I don't really do anything. My charitable dollars go to the environment, literacy, two public universities I like, and my church. The poor really get nothing from me except concern. Not terribly helpful. One cannot eat concern. Concern does not shelter anyone from the rain. Nor do these words.

The only note I'll raise in my defense is this: I feel in my heart that we make the biggest impact on the lives of the poor by changing the public policies to support them. We need to increase the minimum wage, to redefine the poverty guidelines, to reform healthcare and improve the mechanisms that see after basic needs (food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, transportation). We have the ability to do it all we need is the desire.

Anyway, after that self-flagellation, here is a more human side of an subject I've posted on before - the minimum wage.