By Philip Alston, Rev. William Barber, and Rev. Liz Theoharis, CNN Opinion, April 30, 2020
Out of the wreckage of World War II, the United States worked with other countries to proclaim, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that "freedom from fear and want" are people's highest aspirations. Seventy-two years later, with a pandemic laying waste to lives and livelihoods, the world is again gripped by fear and want.
In the United States, the world's wealthiest nation, the coronavirus is laying bare the dire consequences of policies that have led to widespread poverty and inequality.
We are intimately familiar with poverty in this country, having led fact-finding missions in recent months and years on behalf of the United Nations and the Poor People's Campaign. What we have seen over the past two years -- from Alaska to Alabama, from Mississippi to Massachusetts -- is staggering: children wading through yards flooded by raw sewage, families forgoing medical care for fear of bankruptcy, and people working two or three jobs without benefits to pay the bills.
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