To: Pope Francis
ASK POPE FRANCIS TO STAND UP AGAINST INCOME INEQUALITY IN AMERICA
Los Angeles is one of America’s low wage capitals.
46 percent of all workers in Los Angeles are earning poverty wages. As a world leader and champion of the poor, there is no one more fitting than you to shine light on a growing crisis that plagues our communities. We ask you to come to Los Angeles, meet with low wage workers and take a stand against income inequality in America.
46 percent of all workers in Los Angeles are earning poverty wages. As a world leader and champion of the poor, there is no one more fitting than you to shine light on a growing crisis that plagues our communities. We ask you to come to Los Angeles, meet with low wage workers and take a stand against income inequality in America.
Why is this important?
My name is Maria Elena Durazo. I was born into a poor immigrant family. We were farm workers who migrated with the crops, but we always carried with us our faith, our hope and our sense of obligation to those who had even less than we did.
Since Cesar Chavez and the farmworker’s movement, I have dedicated myself to a simple idea-no one who works hard should stay poor.
In January, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO released a study by the Economic Roundtable that showed what many of us suspected – 46 percent of workers in Los Angeles are earning poverty level wages. That percentage translates into 810,000 breadwinners and their families trying to scrape by on poverty wages in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Imagine if 46 percent of the people in your city were being denied a basic freedom guaranteed under our Constitution? That would be considered a human rights crisis of immense proportions. It would be a crisis that would compel everyone to act.
We live in a very rich country, yet working people in America are earning shamefully low wages denying basic human dignity.
That’s why people of all faiths, from all over America are calling on Pope Francis to address the inequality of wealth plaguing our communities and to lift up the voices of millions of workers and their families.
Since Cesar Chavez and the farmworker’s movement, I have dedicated myself to a simple idea-no one who works hard should stay poor.
In January, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO released a study by the Economic Roundtable that showed what many of us suspected – 46 percent of workers in Los Angeles are earning poverty level wages. That percentage translates into 810,000 breadwinners and their families trying to scrape by on poverty wages in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Imagine if 46 percent of the people in your city were being denied a basic freedom guaranteed under our Constitution? That would be considered a human rights crisis of immense proportions. It would be a crisis that would compel everyone to act.
We live in a very rich country, yet working people in America are earning shamefully low wages denying basic human dignity.
That’s why people of all faiths, from all over America are calling on Pope Francis to address the inequality of wealth plaguing our communities and to lift up the voices of millions of workers and their families.