Question

Do you agree with the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty that U.S. policies towards poverty ignore human rights and as a result, our democracy is steadily being undermined? How do you explain the fact that there are 40 million people living under the federal poverty line in the richest country on earth? What kind of actions do you expect the government to take in order to address poverty and income inequality or do you think that these issues are society's responsibility to deal with? Explain.

Answer 1

Extreme poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon that encompasses much more than a lack of sufficient income alone. While many international actors still use measures based exclusively on income, such as the World Bank’s $1.25 a day definition, such approaches fail to capture the depth and complexity of extreme poverty and do not reflect the significant impact of poverty on the full enjoyment of human rights. For the Special Rapporteur, extreme poverty involves a lack of income, a lack of access to basic services and social exclusion (A/HRC/7/15, para. 13). This accords closely with the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) ‘Multidimensional Poverty Index’, which seeks to reflect multiple deprivations at the household level, including in health, schooling and living conditions. Using a multidimensional approach to poverty, the incidence of extreme poverty around the world is staggering. According to UNDP’s Human Development Report 2014, over 2.2 billion people, more than 15 per cent of the world’s population, “are either near or living in multidimensional poverty”.

Poverty is an urgent human rights concern. For those living in extreme poverty, many human rights are out of reach. Among many other deprivations, they often lack access to education, health services or safe drinking water and basic sanitation. They are often excluded from participating meaningfully in the political process and seeking justice for violations of their human rights. Extreme poverty can be a cause of specific human rights violations, for instance because the poor are forced to work in environments that are unsafe and unhealthy. At the same time, poverty can also be a consequence of human rights violations, for instance when children are unable to escape poverty because the State does not provide adequate access to education.

The elimination of extreme poverty should thus not be seen as a question of charity, but as a pressing human rights issue. Its persistence in countries that can afford to eliminate it amounts to a clear violation of fundamental human rights.

Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

The mandate was established to give greater prominence to the plight of those living in extreme poverty and to highlight the human rights consequences of the systematic neglect to which they are all too often subjected. The expert is required by the Human Rights Council to examine and report back to member States on initiatives taken to promote and protect the rights of those living in extreme poverty, with a view to advancing the eradication of such poverty.

Here are six ways to reduce inequality through economic democracy:

1. Require, by law, that all but the smallest companies have employee representatives on company boards and remuneration committees. The proportion of employees on these bodies should be higher in companies with large numbers of employees.

2. The proportion of employee representatives on company boards and remuneration committees should be set to increase over time, moving eventually to majority control and beyond. This could be achieved by requiring that a small proportion of shares be transferred each year to employee-controlled trusts.

3. Before making either of these a legal requirement, conformity with provisions such as these could be made a condition of gaining public sector contracts or lower business tax rates.

4. A major obstacle to developing the democratic sector (cooperatives, social enterprises, mutuals, employee ownership and share ownership business models) is the lack of knowledge of possible models among professional legal and financial advisers. Governments should promote straightforward routes to employee ownership and establish the necessary legislative support. Governments should also provide a training and advice service on how to set up employee-owned and cooperative companies.

5. A government should work out a complete package of measures to grow the democratic sector, complete with tax incentives, sources of advice and support, ready-made rules of governance and sources of finance.

6. The constitutions of employee-owned and cooperative business should in all cases be designed to prevent employees selling their companies back to external shareholders.