October 2nd, 2016

Dear Elected Official,

As a 16-year-old in this great country, you can only imagine how hard it is to be heard. We cannot vote, we are scolded for participation in protests, and people shove our opinions aside as thoughts of “Oh, they’re just a child. They don’t know what they are talking about.” Well I am determined to be heard.

We live in a nation that people consider the greatest one that could possibly exist. But is it really? I mean, nations have problems, but do they have as many as we do? The list of problems goes on and on and on. One issue seems to stand out that affects me more than any other that I simply do not understand. The economy. I know you’re probably saying “Oh, here we go again,” but I just want answers.

President Obama claims that he will not stop until he makes sure every American has a job. Obviously, this is unrealistic because not everyone contains the abilities needed to work properly. But what stuns me, is the fact that all these jobs are being ‘added’ every month to make our economy stronger, and yet people are still losing their jobs. So where are these new jobs being created? How is the President adding jobs to the government if businesses keep leaving the country? How is Congress backing the President up in this time of need? To me right now, it seems like nothing is being done about the economy.

My father is a 52 year old man. He grew up on the principles that hard work will give you everything you need to survive. His ethics are the same as well, saying that you have to work to create your life and your future. My father has been working since he was a toddler by helping out at my Grandfather’s business that he had built to support his family of nine. Becoming a paper boy as a teenager, my father learned how to respect his employers and how to get the job done by working hard. As he grows older, he never gives up on anything. In the past six years, he has been changed between three different jobs. Eventually, each one would lay him off leaving him to become unemployed for six months while trying to to support his family of two children at college, one in high school and his wife. As of right now, my father, my role model, and the person I look up to most in life is now working as a District Manager at the Akron Beacon Journal, which in my eyes seems like a "glorified paper-boy" position. Despite his tremendously incredible resume, job after job push him aside as if he is a piece of used machinery that is not good enough.

Excuse me for my emotions, but you can probably see where I cannot believe that the economy is somehow improving. The wealth gap in this ‘great’ nation is becoming tremendously bigger as the rich become richer, the middle class becomes the new lower class, and the lower class becomes miniscule compared to the other areas. It is sad to see the American Dream slip out of the grasp that so many people thought they had on it. Now it seems like only the rich are able to accomplish this American Dream. I have seen this affect my family very much recently because of the trouble my father has had with finding a job.

Is there some way that you could help create and enact legislation that create more jobs more quickly? I understand that this must be a very complicated task to undergo but it would affect so many people’s lives for the positive. The economy will not get better without putting hard work into it and trying to enact different legislature to help it. I am tired of seeing so many families around the country struggle to live a normal, everyday life because of their jobs or lack of jobs. It's time for a change.

I want to thank you for you for taking the time to read this letter. I would also like to thank you for representing the nation’s general public in the United States Congress.

With Respect,

Robert F. Read II

Junior at Cuyahoga Falls High School

Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio