While many in America are struggling with unemployment, foreclosures, and massive debt it is often forgotten that despite all of this that Americans remain comfortably rich in comparison to many areas.
While more people find themselves living at or below the poverty in the United States, that number of people is a small fraction compared to the numbers in Latin America.
Poverty in Latin America is a widespread issue among many nations.
While some countries are showing slow progress a large majority of the people live in poverty.
Whether by poor distribution of wealth, unstable governments, population growth, or natural disasters, countries like Peru, Ecuador, and Nicaragua are still mired in a swamp of debt, and poverty.
A large majority of those living below the poverty line in Latin America are the peasants, and native people who have inhabited the region for generations.
Often times these people are forgotten by their governments.
These people defy the statistics which speak of improvement, as much of the economic growth has been among the upper class.
Many countries in Latin America are at the mercy of short team, speculative business investments from North America, and while these help they do very little towards helping build an economic frame work.
What wealth there is in Latin America is considered some of the most poorly distributed in the world.
Latin American natives, and slave descendants have less access to workable land, and less money than the descendants of Europeans.
Even in Africa, which is highly considered on of the poorest continents in the world, there is not such an inequality in wealth and land distribution as there is in Latin American.
While almost 13% of people in the US live at or below the poverty line this is a small chip of the almost 25% of people in Latin America that exist on less than $2 a day.
While on a whole Americans are comfortably rich the peoples of Latin America stand in sharp contrast.
Many people with no land to work exist solely by collecting junk and recyclable materials to put food on the family table.
On a bright note many social and political changes are slowly beginning to heal the woes of these nations, and while progress has been slow the entire region has seen improvement.
One day hopefully we can all look towards a time when everyone feels comfortably rich.