Where would you rather be poverty stricken - the United States or India?
Well, Darrell Issa, the richest man in the United States Congress, seems to be of the opinion that America has made its poor “somewhat the envy of the world.”
Asked by CNNMoney whether he feels personally responsible to address income inequality in the United States, the Republican Congressman from California sounded extremely enthusiastic about nipping the issue in the bud. However, he made it a point to bring out the fact that “America is the richest country on earth” and implied that those who were poverty stricken here, were better off than the poor in other nations.
If you go to India or you go to any number of other Third World countries, you have two problems: You have greater inequality of income and wealth. You also have less opportunity for people to rise from the have not to the have. In the US, there is better availability and access to quality public education.
–Darrell Issa
Issa’s personal wealth is by far the greatest of any congress member. His net worth in 2013 - all thanks to a car alarm business he has set up - was $448.4 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Contrary to what Issa has stated, it is actually harder for Americans to climb the economic ladder here than it is for their peers in most other advanced countries, research by University of Ottawa Professor Miles Corak shows.
Opportunity in America also varies widely based on where one lives. Baltimore, for instance, is the toughest place in the country for poor children to escape poverty, according to a new Equality of Opportunity study released this week by Harvard economists.