Trump exacerbating inequality in US: UN expert

UNITED NATIONS, June 2 (APP):Warning of the prospect of the American dream “becoming the American illusion”, the U.N. monitor on
poverty has said in a new report that President Donald Trump is forcing millions of Americans into financial hardship, depriving them of food and other basic needs while lavishing vast riches on the super-wealthy.
Friday’s report, which will be presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council on June 21, is the result of U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Philip Alston’s 10-day tour of the United States last
year, when he investigated whether economic security in the country undermines human rights.
Alston called on US authorities to provide solid social protection and address underlying problems, rather
than “punishing and imprisoning the poor.”
“This is a systematic attack on America’s welfare programme that is undermining the social safety net
for those who can’t cope on their own. Once you start removing any sense of government commitment, you quickly move into cruelty,” Alston said.
“If food stamps and access to Medicaid are removed, and housing subsidies cut, then the effect on people
living on the margins will be drastic,” he added.
While welfare benefits and access to health insurance are being slashed, President Trump’s tax reform has awarded “financial windfalls” to the mega-rich and large companies, further increasing inequality, he added.
US policies since former 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 protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege to be earned
rather than a right of citizenship,” Alston said.
Almost 41 million people live in poverty, 18.5 million of them in extreme poverty, and children account for one in three poor, he said. The United States has the highest youth poverty rate among industrialized countries, he added.
“Its citizens live shorter and sicker 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.
It is based on his mission in December to several U.S. states, including rural Alabama, a slum in downtown
Los Angeles, California, and the US territory of Puerto Rico.