I don't think anyone has talked to the people out here. From west to east, Palm Beach County runs the gamut from very poor to very rich. Places such as Pahokee and Belle Glade are home to migrant workers and great expanses of sugar cane. The New Economy hasn't arrived. Pahokee is slowly dying along Lake Okeechobee's eastern bank.
Unemployed men sit in front of liquor stores or play cards in vacant lots.
The hospital and movie theater have been closed. A sugar cane mill let 300 workers go, just in time for the holidays, Wallace said. About 7,000 people live in Pahokee. Most are minorities and the elderly. No media comes out here.