We're poor here in the Valley. The county we live in, Merced, is poor. Still, most of us don't technically qualify under today's poverty yardstick - a family of four, including two kids, making less than $22,000 a year.
But because, as the Bible said, you always have the poor with you ... and because, as the poet said, no man is an island, apart from the main ... and because most Mercedians are good people at heart ... For all those reasons, whatever our income, we're poor. We're poor because some of us - nearly one in five - are poor.


