The Time Has Come For Economic Human Rights!

Shauna Olson and Anuradha Mittal

In 1948, the United Nations adapted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in an effort to establish a standard for dignified human life around the world. Among its 30 articles outlining the civil and political freedoms generally associated with human rights, the UDHR also holds that economic security should also be universally upheld. "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself (herself) and of his (her) family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.... (Article 25, UDHR). The 50th anniversary of this historic document provides an important opportunity to evaluate how far the world has progressed in translating these goals into reality.

Human Rights in the United States

Such reflection is especially important in the United States, given the strong leadership role that it played in the drafting and adoption of the UDHR. Being the wealthiest nation in the world also makes it the most capable of upholding the economic human rights of its people. However, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that these universal goals have not yet transformed the American reality. Measuring the rights laid out in the UDHR against the actual status of the people at the bottom of the American economy reveals a huge gap into which millions fall daily.

A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute showed that the percentage of people living below the poverty line in this country has risen from 11.6 percent in the 1970s to 14.2 percent in 1994. The most vulnerable members of society are the ones that suffer most when poverty increases. Research by the Population Reference Bureau showed that out of 38 million people living below the poverty line in the United States, 40 percent were children and 10 percent were over 65. Additionally, the Children's Defense Fund reported that one-fourth of all children nationwide under the age of six live in poverty, a statistic higher than in any other developed country.

The effects of this rise in poverty are most visible in the denial of basic needs, such as food. A nationwide survey published in 1997 revealed that approximately 30 million Americans were hungry, and at least 12 million of these were under eighteen. This is a 50 percent increase since 1985. Another team of researchers estimated that 8.4 million people suffer from food insecurity in California alone. They predicted that by 2000, this number might grow to include as many as one-third of the state's children.

These figures are even more startling in light of the evidence that such economic changes were not evenly distributed. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that the incomes of the rich rose significantly at the same time that poverty was growing. In 1978, the typical CEO salary was 60 times that of the average worker. By 1995, the average CEO earned about 173 times as much as a typical worker. This is the highest wage gap in the industrialized world, leading to a deep disparity between the poor and the wealthy. At the same time, the government has done nothing to equalize the scales. In fact, the EPI estimated that the net tax bill of the wealthiest 1 percent of American families has actually fallen by $46,792 since 1977.

Such statistics support the analysis on which Food First was founded, that hunger is not due to an absolute shortage of food but rather to political and economic factors which skew its distribution. The 1996 welfare reform bill signed by President Clinton was further evidence of the tendency to burden the poor while leaving the wealthy untouched. The bill deepened the plight of the poor by removing the safety net from those who needed it most. Among other things, it denied food assistance to non-citizens and limited its availability to able-bodied adults; threatened cash and Medicaid support for 300,000 children with disabilities; reduced AFDC-type aid from 71 percent of poverty line income to only 57 percent; and tied the remaining aid to work requirements.

On the one hand, this draconian law pushes additional workers into an economy already short on worthwhile jobs for poor people. Hunger in the United States is increasing for a variety of reasons, but poverty and growing inequality are at the root of all of them. Today 38 million Americans live in poverty. Despite their best efforts, increasing numbers of working families are being trapped in poverty. Working full time, year round for the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour earns only 83 percent of the poverty line income for a family of three. Contrary to popular belief, a large percentage of households in need of food assistance have one or more employed family members, but are still unable to sustain themselves.

In 1997, nearly half of households receiving emergency food in Alameda County, where Food First is located, had at least one employed family member but still did not make enough to buy sufficient food. New studies have estimated that only one out of 97 released from welfare will find a job that pays a livable wage. Having to work at the first available job does not allow aid recipients to build skills and receive training they need to secure better employment in the future. All in all, the reform reduced the incomes of one-fifth of all U.S. families with children by an average of $1,300 a year. The Urban Institute estimated that by eliminating AFDC, the new law will push an additional 1.1 million children into poverty. By 2002, an additional 2.6 million people overall will be living below the poverty line. It is clear that this reform was not adopted with the government's obligation to protect, respect and implement economic human rights of people in mind. In fact, the head of the U.S. delegation to the November, 1996 World Food Summit stated that the United States could not support the Summit's Plan of Action language around the right to food because welfare reform would then be in violation of international law!

We Can't Sit Still!

In response to the unconscionable socioeconomic conditions facing millions in this country, the Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN) USA, action wing of the Institute for Food and Development Policy-- Food First, has launched "Economic Human Rights: The Time Has Come!," a national campaign which is using the UDHR anniversary to publicize the rise of domestic hunger and poverty as a violation of basic human rights. The campaign has organized ad hoc congressional hearings which will provide a forum for underrepresented groups and individuals to speak out about the concrete effects of regressive legislation and the poverty that results.

The first hearing was held on May 2nd in Oakland, California and the second will address the same issues at a national level in Washington, D.C. in September.

Three congressional representatives presided at the Oakland Federal Building on May 2nd at the ad hoc Congressional Hearing on Economic Human Rights Violations in the U.S.

Welfare mothers, homeless men and women, low wage workers, seniors, veterans, health care workers and many others courageously told the representatives their personal stories of poverty and hunger in an increasingly unfair America. Despite the economic bonanza on Wall Street, five to seven million Americans are homeless, one in nine faces hunger, and one in four children lives in poverty, more than any other industrialized country.

One by one, ordinary people, in sometimes faltering, sometimes proud, and sometimes angry voices, faced their representatives and the TV cameras, speaking of how their lives are barely held together by a patch work of Federal aid, low-paying jobs and subsistence existence. The essence of their testimony was that while America criticizes other countries on their human rights records, our country is not meeting the minimum economic human rights standards spelled out 50 years ago.

"We live in a golden age of opportunity, yet hundreds of thousands of people are hungry and homeless," said Congressman Earl Hilliard (D- AL), who came to Oakland for the hearing. He was joined by newly elected Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA.).

In the run-up to the first hearing Food First ran full-page advertisements in The New York Times-West Coast Edition, The Nation, The San Francisco Bay Guardian and The East Bay Express. Many people responded to the ads by calling the U.S. Senate to support economic human rights on a special 888 telephone line provided to Food First for one week by Working Assets Long Distance.

FIAN's efforts have already gained the support of over 160 organizations representing a spectrum of interests, including labor, hunger, homeless, human rights, women, immigrant, and faith-based communities. It has also been endorsed by several progressives in the Congress, including Ron Dellums, Esteban Torres, Melvin Watt, George Miller, John Conyers, Cynthia Ann McKinney, Nancy Pelosi, and Xavier Becerra.

This campaign is bringing the human face of poverty to the forefront of debates which so often lapse into muddled collages of catch phrases and sound bites. No one can deny that dignified human life requires access to basic needs such as food, shelter and jobs. Fifty years ago, the UN General Assembly agreed that these should be upheld as universal human rights. In making it painfully clear that millions in this country are not getting these needs met, this growing coalition is showing the policymakers that current conditions are unacceptable. We cannot allow the UDHR's anniversary to simply pass, congratulating ourselves on the beauty of our ideals while allowing the status quo to continue unchallenged.

Shauna Olson is the Summer Program Coordinator at the California Food Policy Advocates. Anuradha Mittal is the Policy Director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy - Food First. She may be reached at: Food First, 398 60th Street, Oakland, CA 94618. Phone: (510) 654-4400 Fax: (510) 654-4551.

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