Christine Hauser’s article “Single Mega Millions Ticket Wins $1.34 Billion as Jackpot Grows” details the successes of the winners of the recent Mega Millions jackpot, as well as particulars about the lottery process and the outcomes – both dire and breathtakingly wonderful.
As light-hearted a topic this article revolves around, once a more incisive look is taken into the subject, the content of this article leaves a bit of a bitter taste in your mouth.
To put it into the simplest of terms: people out there are living astonishingly impoverished lives while likely middle-class people are winning big bucks with frivolous means. One may argue that the U.S.’ poverty rate is a staggering 11.4 percent, with a poverty threshold of 12,760 dollars. And yet, Nigeria, Africa’s most financially well-off country, has a poverty rate of 40.1 percent. Is the difference not already astoundingly clear? Some change must be made to the U.S.’ so-called “lotto culture”.
Hauser notes, “The odds of winning the jackpot were long, one in 303 million.” Accordingly, the U.S. population is 329.5 million. As vague as we can be, it’s still obvious the chances of an impoverished person winning the lotto is one in a million… or rather, one in three hundred three million.
This leads us to an argument about the American attitude regarding poverty in the U.S. Most disregard their born social class and trumpet hard work for success.
We need to look past ourselves and towards U.S. poverty. Enough said.