United Nations Investigation of Extreme Poverty in the United States

Poverty
Sustainability
Children
Sustainability
Equity
Edward Hessler

The United States is a nation of both great wealth and great poverty/inequality. In too many places across this great nation, the two extremes exist, sometimes cheek to jowl, other times in pockets that escape notice. There are approximately 40 million Americans living in poverty out of a total of ~ 325 million people.

On November 29, 2017 the United Nations announced that "Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, will visit the United States from 1 to 15 December 2017 to examine government efforts to eradicate poverty in the country, and how they relate to US obligations under international human rights law."

I welcome this examination and in the end hope it helps us be more conscious about our values and how we live.

Alston's tour made stops in four states, one in Washington, DC and another in the U. S. territory of Puerto Rico.  Alston made a preliminary statement, December 15, 2017 which may be read here.

Below you will find the bullet points from his statement showing the contrast between the wealth, innovative capacity, and work ethic of the US, and the attainment of the social and other outcomes. This is only a sample of the findings and observations.  

• By most indicators, the US is one of the world’s wealthiest countries.  It spends more on national defense than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Kingdom, India, France, and Japan combined.
• US health care expenditures per capita are double the OECD average and much higher than in all other countries. But there are many fewer doctors and hospital beds per person than the OECD average.
• US infant mortality rates in 2013 were the highest in the developed world.
• Americans can expect to live shorter and sicker lives, compared to people living in any other rich democracy, and the “health gap” between the U.S. and its peer countries continues to grow.
• U.S. inequality levels are far higher than those in most European countries
• Neglected tropical diseases, including Zika, are increasingly common in the USA.  It has been estimated that 12 million Americans live with a neglected parasitic infection. A 2017 report documents the prevalence of hookworm in Lowndes County, Alabama.
• The US has the highest prevalence of obesity in the developed world.
• In terms of access to water and sanitation the US ranks 36th in the world.
• America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, ahead of Turkmenistan, El Salvador, Cuba, Thailand and the Russian Federation. Its rate is nearly 5 times the OECD average.
• The youth poverty rate in the United States is the highest across the OECD with one quarter of youth living in poverty compared to less than 14% across the OECD.
• The Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranks the most well-off countries in terms of labor markets, poverty, safety net, wealth inequality, and economic mobility. The US comes in last of the top 10 most well-off countries, and 18th amongst the top 21.
• In the OECD the US ranks 35th out of 37 in terms of poverty and inequality.
• According to the World Income Inequality Database, the US has the highest Gini rate (measuring inequality) of all Western Countries
• The Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality characterizes the US as “a clear and constant outlier in the child poverty league.” US child poverty rates are the highest amongst the six richest countries – Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden and Norway.
• About 55.7% of the U.S. voting-age population cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election. In the OECD, the U.S. placed 28th in voter turnout, compared with an OECD average of 75%.  Registered voters represent a much smaller share of potential voters in the U.S. than just about any other OECD country. Only about 64% of the U.S. voting-age population (and 70% of voting-age citizens) was registered in 2016, compared with 91% in Canada (2015) and the UK (2016), 96% in Sweden (2014), and nearly 99% in Japan (2014). 

Mr. Alston’s final report on his US visit will be available in Spring 2018 and will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in June 2018.