Jessica Rhinesmith

West Milford Twp. High School

67 Highlander Drive

West Milford, NJ 07480

11/3/2016

Future President at the White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Future President,

Hi my name is Jessica, and I am a freshman at West Milford High School. I wanted to talk to you about the poverty going on in our nation, It affects many families like mine and it’s definitely a problem we should solve. It’s important to fight this together as a nation to get through this issue that affects so many people.

Today nearly 47 million Americans live in poverty and almost all of them live on $2.50 or less a day. Nearly 51% of Americans make $30,000 or less a year, which is honestly horrible to think about if you have to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head.In the past six years the number of homeless increased over 60%! So far 1 out of 5 children are living on food stamps, can you imagine an entire family? It’s obvious that poverty is getting out of control…

The causes of this tragedy Is Incredibly high taxes, poor paying jobs, National or state debt, and insufficient work benefits. How are some people expected to give when they have nothing? For example my family is suffering from my Father’s poor paying job, poor work benefits, and having to pay such high taxes and an expensive mortgage with money we don’t even have. I know we all have to face reality, but why should it be so hard for us when some people have it so easy?

Entire families are affected, poverty is creating more homeless, starving, sick, and struggling people… And it needs to stop. Studies show that 29,000 children die before the age of 5 each day, will my younger siblings be tomorrow’s victim? By donating money, food, and clothes to charities, a local church, or a friend in need can help save a life or an entire family.

There are many perspectives on this issue, that “If we are truly the Greatest Nation, why can’t we take care of our own people”, “Poverty was brought on the people themselves” and “Poverty is caused by the greedy government and their evil ways” (as stated on Globalissues.org) But only one thing I know is clear is that this needs to stop, and that people are dying everyday because of this!

Like I said before, by donating money, food, and clothes to charities, a local church, or a friend in need can help save a life or an entire family in need. We need to help our people in their time of need, by ending poverty in our country we can also help our allies too.

I hope in your term of presidency you realize that poverty is a problem we all need to solve, and by doing it together we can make a better tomorrow for everyone. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Jessica Rhinesmith

A Student at West Milford High School