The U.N. Just Published a Scathing Indictment of U.S. Poverty
June 1, 2018 | Jeremy Slevin
Excerpt:
The United Nations has released a scathing report on poverty and inequality in the United States. The findings, which will be presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council on June 21, follow an official visit to the United States by Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, to investigate whether economic insecurity in the country undermines human rights.
The conclusions are damning. The United States already leads the developed world in income and wealth inequality, and it is now moving full steam ahead to make itself even more unequal, the report concludes. High child and youth poverty rates perpetuate the intergenerational transmission of poverty very effectively, and ensure that the American dream is rapidly becoming the American illusion.
The U.N. explicitly lays blame with the Trump administration for policies that actively increase poverty and inequality in the country. The $1.5 trillion in tax cuts in December 2017 overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and worsened inequality. The consequences of neglecting poverty and promoting inequality are clear, it concludes. The policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege to be earned rather than a right of citizenship.
In December, Alston visited seven locations throughout the countryranging from Los Angeless Skid Row neighborhood to rural Alabama, West Virginia, and Puerto Ricoto meet with people experiencing deep poverty, along with experts and civil society groups.
https://talkpoverty.org/2018/06/01/un-just-published-scathing-indictment-us-poverty/
appalachiablue
(41,168 posts)- Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
Uncle Joe
(58,402 posts)Thanks for the thread Donkees
Mosby
(16,339 posts)Egypt - 45% of kids don't get good nutrition
https://borgenproject.org/poverty-and-hunger-in-egypt/
Ethiopia - 6 million kids facing food shortages.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/drought-leaves-6-million-ethiopian-children-hungry-160408134745829.html
Kenya - 370,000 kids don't have enough to eat.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-drought-food/poor-rains-in-kenya-deepens-drought-children-go-hungry-unicef-idUSKCN1BQ2CV
I could go on, and on, and on.
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/MembersByGroup.aspx