In an era where bad luck is mistaken for bad character, the plight of those worse off tends to be ignored or portrayed as a perverse form of retribution. Poverty becomes both a crime and its own punishment, even for children. In many U.S. schools, a child who cannot come up with lunch money is expected to go hungry. In Texas, a twelve-year-old’s lunch was thrown in the trash because he could not come up with the 30 cents to pay for it.
