Poverty and the Right to Development in the United States of America

Abstract

In Mai 2020, some time after completion of this chapter, America seems to be coming apart at the seams. Fear of SARS-CoV-2 and the countermeasures introduced across the country have left much of the economy in tatters and produced well over 40 million newly unemployed. Many existences, difficult even before this global crisis, have become untenable. Pictures of long lines in front of food banks made international headlines. America, one of the richest societies in the world, is in deep trouble. With economic pain comes civil unrest. Demonstrations, often violent, are paralysing cities across the nation. Triggered by the death of George Floyd in a police incident on the streets of Minneapolis, citizens are expressing deep frustration with not only unequal treatment by law enforcement but also the deteriorating socio-economic situation of many communities. The income gap in America is one of the most pronounced among OECD nations; areas like Los Angeles are experiencing unprecedented numbers of homeless people; staggering differences in the quality of health care are having a measurable impact on the life expectancy of citizens; and spending cuts for public education are coming under judicial scrutiny and putting courts at loggerheads with the executive and legislative branches of government in states like Kansas or Kentucky. This contribution describes the constitutional parameters that shape these dramatic developments and define economic existence in the United States of America. It highlights the very limited protection provided for the essential core of human life (food, water, housing and health care), education or other socio-economic entitlements under both the federal and state constitutions, and contrasts these findings with the elaborate system of statutory social welfare programs that many Americans believe should determine the country’s identity but are today under siege in light of budgetary constraints and an increasingly partisan political landscape. The challenges of allocating dwindling public resources to competing needs, problems created by the internal migration of citizens seeking a better future in other parts of the country, tensions caused by significant economic differences between the component parts of a federal system, and America’s strained relationship with the international community and global approaches to poverty and development are related themes that feature in this analysis. America, so the conclusion, lacks constitutional consensus about what society must provide in terms of individual socio-economic security. Leaving this decision to the ebb and flow of political majorities is likely to further increase wealth disparity, put considerable pressure on the country’s democratic institutions, waste valuable human potential and risk alienating citizens that have lost trust in the ability of the system to provide sufficient opportunity for personal development.