Poor Get Big Macs

I’m sure that many people feel the same way as Eric Mendez (“The Rich Get Richer,” Letters, Oct. 25) following the publication of the new list of the 400 richest Americans by Forbes magazine. He points out that the billionaires of this country boast of a 41% increase in their wealth while pay and benefits for the average working person are dwindling.

I’m not sure what the connection is supposed to be here. Jean Kroc, widow of the founder of McDonald’s restaurants, is a billionaire not because the teen-agers who work at McDonald’s get paid minimum wage but because there are hordes of Americans who are more than willing to wait in line to get a high-cholesterol meal of cheeseburgers, french fries and milkshakes. If they raised the salaries of McDonald’s workers, Jean Kroc wouldn’t get poorer--you would just get charged more for a Big Mac. I don’t think this would make anybody happy. And incidentally, there are nearly 5 billion people in the world and many of them live on less than $200 a year. If the wealth in the world were distributed evenly, I’d hate to think how poor I’d be.

MATTHEW OKADA

Pasadena