For the needy, a poor excuse It is unfashionable to be poor in America. Even workers just a paycheck away from being poverty-stricken themselves -- an illness, a layoff, a car accident away from having the electricity turned off -- are contemptuous of those just beneath them on the socioeconomic ladder. The Horatio Alger myth is so powerful that one's fortune is either in the bank or in the near future. Hard times are just a temporary condition -- or so people believe. A Time-CNN poll during the 2000 presidential elections asked voters whether they were in the top 1...