Poverty in the USA

Expert: Poor getting more destitute under Trump

UN human rights investigator reveals that America’s poor are becoming more destitute under Trump.

GENEVA: Poverty in the United States is extensive and deepening under the Trump administration whose policies seem aimed at removing the safety net from millions of poor people, while rewarding the rich, a UN human rights investigator has found.

Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty, called on US authorities to provide solid social protection and address underlying problems, rather than “punishing and imprisoning the poor”.

While welfare benefits and access to health insurance are being slashed, President Donald Trump’s tax reform has awarded “financial windfalls” to the mega-rich and large companies, further increasing inequality, he said in a report.

US policies since President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty in the 1960s have been “neglectful at best”, he said.

“But the policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protec- tions from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic healthcare into a privilege to be earned rather than a right of citizenship,” Alston said.

Almost 41 million people or 12.7% live in poverty, 18.5 million in extreme poverty, and children account for one in three poor, he said. The United States has the highest youth poverty rate among industrialised countries, he added.

“Its citizens live shorter and sick- er 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 ... and the highest obesity levels in the developed world,” Alston said.

However, the data from the US Census Bureau he cited covers only the period through 2016, and he gave no comparative figures on the extent of poverty before and after Trump came into office in January 2017.

The Australian, a veteran UN rights expert and New York University law professor, will present his report to the United Nations Human Rights Council later this month.

Citing ”shameful statistics” linked to entrenched racial discrimination, Alston said that African Americans are 2.5 times more likely than whites to live in poverty and their unemployment rate is more than double. Women, Hispanics, immigrants and indigenous people also suffer high rates.