Senate UN Special Rapporteur's report on poverty in the USA

A few things before we start.

If you just came here to blame Trump or attack the UN, basically because you lack the intellectual and emotional maturity to handle the underlying criticism of the frameworks, don't bother. Stick to the US politics thread where memes are considered evidence.

This report covers areas of policy and poverty, and is quite scathing in its conclusions. Even its introduction is terse:

"The United States is a land of stark contrasts. It is one of the world’s wealthiest societies, a global leader in many areas, and a land of unsurpassed technological and other forms of innovation. Its corporations are global trendsetters, its civil society is vibrant and sophisticated and its higher education system leads the world. But its immense wealth and expertise stand in shocking contrast with the conditions in which vast numbers of its citizens live. About 40 million live in poverty, 18.5 million in extreme poverty, and 5.3 million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty.4 It has the highest youth poverty rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the highest infant mortality rates among comparable OECD States. Its citizens live shorter and sicker lives compared to those living in all other rich democracies, eradicable tropical diseases are increasingly prevalent, and it has the world’s highest incarceration rate, one of the lowest levels of voter registrations in among OECD countries and the highest obesity levels in the developed world.
5. The United States has the highest rate of income inequality among Western countries.5 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. The United States has one of the highest poverty and inequality levels among the OECD countries, and the Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranks it 18th out of 21 wealthy countries in terms of labour markets, poverty rates, safety nets, wealth inequality and economic mobility. But in 2018 the United States had over 25 per cent of the world’s 2,208 billionaires. There is thus a dramatic contrast between the immense wealth of the few and the squalor and deprivation in which vast numbers of Americans exist. For almost five decades the overall policy response has been neglectful at best, but 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."

It doesn't get any better.

A lot of you know this. Or at least, more accurately, you suspect it was bad but perhaps not quite this bad. There's one line in here that really hits home hardest, and it hits at both Democrats and Republicans alike:

"At the end of the day, however, particularly in a rich country like the United States, the persistence of extreme poverty is a political choice made by those in power."

If you read this report, what are your thoughts? Is this getting much airtime in the US? Do you instinctively feel it's unfair for the UN to single the US out in so public a fashion? What remedies are available - actual remedies, too, and not just hoping the Democrats take Congress (since they're equally at fault for the systemic issues)?

 

That's really the only thing to do. Get Democrats elected, get liberal judges appointed to the courts, gradually enact campaign finance laws, and maybe over the next hundred years things will turn for the better.

 

That's disheartening to read. "If we do the least we can do it might get better in a century."

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I meant the post above mine was disheartening. The report is full of no surprises.

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There is no clear road to a solution, and certainly there is no solution that is not extremely difficult. The two parties are entrenched in power and both serve the wealthy. The party that is and has historically been more receptive to pro-worker, anti-poverty activism is attacking such activists-- calling them not "real" Democrats, purging them from the DNC, calling their mild goals such as universal single-payer healthcare "radical" and "unrealistic," and scapegoating them for the party's dismal failure in 2016 (which was really a culmination of its failures for the past decade). We're seeing potential 2020 presidential candidates starting to support "progressive" goals, but who knows if it's just lip service for most of them and the president alone doesn't set policy anyway. Given that a chunk of Democrats just recently voted for a few bills to roll back regulations on the financial sector, I'm not holding my breath as far as a hypothetical Democratic majority in congress moving the country in the right direction. They talk of incremental change, but that never works when they lose power and when some of them turn around and change things back when they think people aren't looking.

Basic structural reform or abolition of the United States would not turn out well for most people. I wouldn't expect a better state to come from this climate. It would most likely skew rightward, with all the bigotry and plutocracy celebrated by the Trump administration further codified and legitimized. Of course any left-wing attempt at a coup or revolution, as much as there is a "real" left in this country, would be stopped by the military.

 

People who live in poverty are just lazy and need to get off their arses and make something of themselves- why should hardworking citizens donate their tax dollars to lazy miscreants who just want to live off the public dole. If you gave them a safety net they wouldn't work hard and the whole country would be ****ed. The wealth of the country shouldn't be propped up by those few with an actual work ethic. If so and so can make it rich then so can anyone - opportunity is there for all - you just have to work hard and want it.

As long as that pretty much sums up your average Murican voter then there can be no solution ever. Strange as it is that those countries with heavy taxation, robust safety nets and lower rates of poverty still manage to produce their fair share of millionaires and billionaires. It's almost like you can have economic prosperity and also look after your citizens at the same time.

 

I don't think that actually sums up the "average" American voter. The majority or plurality-- I don't remember exactly-- of American voters cast their votes in favor of Democrats in 2016, and supporting the party associated with the so-called safety net (accurate or not) at least shows an impulse to support better conditions for the majority of people. There's also the 45-or-so percent of eligible voters who do not participate in elections for various reasons, and I doubt many of them fit such a characterization either. Getting more people to participate in elections would probably be better for the U.S., which is why those in power tend to do their best to discourage it.

 

I interact mostly with people from Texas.

 

Even in Texas it would be at least 40%, though I assume you're interacting with the whiter, more well-off segment.

 

Strangely enough it is the legal immigrants who mostly state that view.

 

Isn’t your point applying less and less every passing day, though? I guess earlier American generations (read: Baby Boomers) grew up on Wilder and Twain, but the latest couple generations have grown up on Potter, a British story, so much so that a wide swath of the Millenials are called the “Potter Generation.” You work with kids, you know how few of them have probably read Huckleberry Finn or Little House compared to Potter, or even Narnia.

 

Ah, I see. Well, I recall reading a lot of Blume, Dahl, Lewis, and, of course, Wilder, before Rowling came along. I had a pretty even mix of American and British, which I suspect most of my peers did, too, whether they came from public or private schools (both of which I attended). I can’t really speak for the Midwest, though.

I guess I read a lot of this stuff about frontier bravado and gun fetishism and I think, I don’t get it. Most Americans I talk to and see on a daily basis aren’t like that. It goes to show that this country is a very big place, the third largest by area and population (I think?). It seems like so many people, including on this board, forget that.

Edit: I might be thinking of Beverly Cleary, not Judy Blume. Speaking of, holy ****, Cleary is alive and 102 years old!

 

The picture you paint is, necessarily or otherwise, bleak. Not unrealistic, mind you - just that there's precious little scope for any hope. Incremental improvements will not do enough to arrest the trends in poverty and underinvestment in education et al; they can't address wider issues such as welfare and what to me is a really striking statement from the report; "make even basic health care into a privilege to be earned rather than a right of citizenship."

So is it "damned if you do or damned if you don't", but with degrees to which the middle class are in some capacity preserved?

 

My thoughts? All sober, as I understood long ago that my country has been in a slow death spiral since the Reagan Revolution, and that the destruction that we've unleashed on the poor abroad and within is now being visited upon wider swathes.

Is it getting much airtime? Of course not. Six corporations control 90% of our media--poverty and exploitation aren't to be broached. All we hear about is Russian meddling, and whatever vomit Red Team/Blue Team celebrities like Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee spew. There are small rebellions occurring (e.g., the teachers' strikes), but the cameras trained on them are few and far between.

Is the U.N. being unfair? Emphatically NO. The United States is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world.

Remedies? I dunno. I'm something of an activist, currently involved in the Poor People's Campaign. I'm compelled to expose and combat institutional evil. As such, I vacillate between hope and despair: seeing, before my eyes, citizens drawn into the battle for a more just society, hearing loftier, humane ideals being disseminated, all the while despairing of the hideous forces that control every government branch and both parties, to say nothing of the climate catastrophe looming in the near horizon. I just don't know.

 

What will actually be most telling is the people who don't respond here.

There's an element though where it's chicken and egg, right? Like corporations - one of those nefarious forces - and Koch Brother types are just people. They behave the way they behave for a good reason, and you generally see more social responsibility in other companies outside the US. I mean, US companies are by far and way the most likely to be dodging taxes in Ireland, for example. So I mean, is the issue actually the cultural piece?

 

I keep see people talk about how both parties are the same,but it's not true.One is at least trying and with the DSA(Democratic Socialist of America) running and winning in states like Virginia we have a chance to turn things around.It will take time.America is never going to be like Europe sadly but we can be better.Right now we are having a backlash(whitelash?) but soon that will be over.America will be behind Europe in alot of areas.

I live in the South.People here are some of the poorest in America and yet they vote for people who would keep them poor,why?Because people have given up on them.Talk to them,Many are reasonable and can see the truth,it takes time but their minds can be changed.

Stop saying that Democrats are just corporate lapdogs.Democrats have a large center and that is what will win us the white house and the congress.Most Americans are in the Center,not Left or Right.So long as our Left can push some ideas through,i think we will be just fine.Bring up the wages and people will see who their friends are.(at least for a time)

*coughcough* Now back to your regular program.

 

OK bluealien but the UN report notes a 50 year period. That would take us back to 1968. Which means Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama were all presidents during that period. So you know, culpable.

 

Yes and we had Nixon and Reagan and two Bushs.The road we travel is not a straight one,we zigzag but still get to where we are going.America will never be just like Europe,in some areas will we be ahead and in others we will be behind.At least your parties all agree Climate Change is a thing.

 

There's always UKIP for UK climate skepticism.

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Ok sure but it's not like it was up and down. It's just been downhill. Don't give one side a pass because you were or maybe are a paid member of their club.

 

Please tell me what you mean by this?