U.S.'s reality highlights need for economic rights as human rights

An NYPD officer walks along a sparsely populated Wall Street in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., May 1, 2020. /AP

**Editor's note: **Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. He has been featured on Press TV, Russia Today and Radio Sputnik. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Imagine a country suffering from food and supply shortages, with empty shelves, long food lines, and children at risk of starving. Imagine that, at the same time, this country is also forcing its workers to work in unsafe conditions that could lead to death with the only alternative being homelessness and starvation.

If you've been reading exclusively the Western, or particularly the American, press over the past century, you would think of North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela or elsewhere in a similar category. But that country today is the United States of America.

Virtually every scare image used to paint socialism as unjust and unprosperous has now become a daily reality in America during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights the need for economic rights as human rights.

Americans are lining up by the thousands to wait in line at food banks to receive sustenance, showing a dystopian picture into daily American life.

On Wednesday, the Brookings Institution published a study showing that nearly one in five children in America are going hungry right now.

At the same time, the resources do exist to alleviate this widespread suffering of people.

The United States Department of Agriculture is filled with requests from farmers to purchase their excess crops for the year, as food supply lines are cut due to school and restaurant closures, but they have so far dragged their feet.

Farmers in Washington are currently sitting on one billion pounds of potatoes with nowhere to go. In early April, Wisconsin dairy farmers were directed by industry organizations to literally pour tens of thousands of gallons of milk down the drain due to an oversupply in the market.

Thanks to America's monopoly capitalism, only the very wealthy are worthy of state intervention, as the federal government has virtually nationalized the stock market to maintain Wall Street dividends.

Last week, the SP 500 and Dow both finished with their best monthly performance since 1987 and the best month of April since 1938. Stocks are soaring as the government has made it clear that Wall Street will not fail, having already dumped well over a trillion dollars into the market at the first sign of downturn with virtually no thought.

Quite a different picture than main street, as now one in five American workers — over 33 million people — have filed for unemployment since the middle of March, according to the Department of Labor on Thursday. They are being offered nothing by their elected officials, and lawmakers are weary to grant any more spending directed to workers after the first round of stimulus.

A store for rent sign hangs in the window of an empty storefront on Broadway in the Soho neighborhood of Manhattan in New York, U.S., May 7, 2020. /AP

In fact, what little of a social safety net exists to protect working families is being pulled from under them.

On Wednesday, the Intercept reported that Ohio's state government has now introduced a form that would allow employers to report workers "who quit or refuse work when it is available due to COVID-19," inevitably flagging their unemployment insurance claims for denial.

Put another way: if a worker does not want to work at a job that they feel is unsafe, unless they have child care duties or a doctor's note, they have no other choice because the alternative is starvation.

State governments are likely to follow Ohio's example, and federal lawmakers are working to consolidate this policy.

Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear that his senate will push through a corporate liability bill that will insulate corporations from any lawsuits brought about by unsafe working conditions or outright ignoring guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

U.S. President Donald Trump expressed a similar sentiment on Tuesday:

"Well run States should not be bailing out poorly run States, using the coronavirus as the excuse! The elimination of Sanctuary Cities, Payroll Taxes, and perhaps Capital Gains Taxes, must be put on the table. Also lawsuit indemnification business deductions for restaurants ent," he tweeted.

Trump, for his part, is pushing the rapid opening of the country despite the fact that his administration's own internal documents suggest that nearly 3,000 Americans could die per day, a larger than 9/11 death count every day, by June 1. It is now estimated that 134,000 Americans could die by August.

While it is true that the virus itself targets no identity in particular, the fact remains that those most likely to be infected and have negative health outcomes in America are the underprivileged.

In one particularly gruesome story, a 17-year-old was turned away at an urgent care in California for not having health insurance and later died, presumably from COVID-19 as tests showed later. To put it blunt: he died because he could not afford treatment.

The Office of National Statistics said on Thursday that black people are four times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white people. Another study in late April from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that both Latinos and black people have worse outcomes than white people. Social factors are the main contributions, the studies suggest.

In general in America, the poor and impoverished have generally worse health outcomes, more unsafe working conditions, and more exposure to illness. The trend will hold as blue collar Americans are forced to work in unsafe conditions; the rest who are unemployed will face food and housing insecurity.

The United States, the self-proclaimed champion of human rights, is one of the only countries that has not signed and ratified the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, basically the gold standard for this issue.

The world has come to a consensus — countries such as China are launching an all-out war on extreme poverty and granting basic economic rights to people in a way never seen in history.China's unprecedented recovery from COVID-19 alone proves the success of a people-first economy.

The world must use the United States as a case in point for economic rights as human rights because America is neglecting the interests of the underprivileged, which must never be allowed to happen again.

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at [email protected].)