Just How Rich Are Our Poor?

Quote :

It doesn't detract from the first lady's generous gesture or the real needs she seeks to highlight to ask two bothersome journalistic questions about these news photos:

If this unidentified meal recipient is too poor to buy his own food, how does he afford a cellphone?

And if he is homeless, where do they send the cellphone bills?

Source

The Obamas are from the Clinton school on photo-ops...

Mongo wrote:

Quote :

It doesn't detract from the first lady's generous gesture or the real needs she seeks to highlight to ask two bothersome journalistic questions about these news photos:

If this unidentified meal recipient is too poor to buy his own food, how does he afford a cellphone?

And if he is homeless, where do they send the cellphone bills?

Source

The poor people I know have pre-paid phones so there is no need for a billing address. Cricket is very cheap (unlimited) within city limits. If this person has family members who care about them the phone could have been provided to them in case of a medical emergency. The person could be diabetic, epileptic, etc. We probably shouldn't pass judgment on people we do not know.

I often work in the Archdiocese of Louisville Soup Kitchen under the Cathedral and I sometimes see the people with cell phones. Many of them are not homeless, just poor. The have work sometimes and sometimes not but will have prepaid phones. Often the ones that are homeless will go to St. John's Day center to shower and get cleaned up and St. John will hold mail for them so I guess technically they do get a bill but most I imagine have prepaid.