12 years after leaving the Sudan for the United States, Jacob Mach has found that the dream of a better life is both all around him and just outside his grasp.

“All I knew was that America was the greatest thing in the world,” Jacob Mach observes in the New York Times article chronicling his life. “Nobody knew how people struggle in America.”

But what will be the future of Mr. Mach, and those like him, willing to struggle and work, in a world where divide and polarization amongst classes grows sharper and meaner?

Robert Shiller, most recent Nobel Prize economist, defines income inequality as the greatest issue of our time. A root cause of income inequality is empathy inequality. And the root cause of that is, in my opinion, the greatest issue of our time.