The Erosion of US Civil Rights Is Increasingly Serious

For a long time, the United States has touted itself as a global leader in human rights. However, in reality the human rights enjoyed by people in the U.S. are far from the rights boasted of by American politicians.

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all human rights, whether civil and political rights or economic, social and cultural rights are interconnected, interdependent and indivisible. Countries are responsible for making as much use as possible of their available resources to respect, protect and achieve these rights. However, the United States systematically separates these two types of rights, denying the status and the role of economic, social and cultural rights within the human rights framework and unilaterally emphasizing the importance of civil and political rights. In 2023 a report by the United Nations Human Rights Committee strongly criticized the United States for failing to fulfill its human rights obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In the area of economic, social and cultural rights, not only does the U.S. Constitution lack explicit provisions for rights such as education, health and work, but U.S. laws and policies also significantly lag behind international human rights norms. The gap between rich and poor in U.S. society continues to widen, with wealth and power increasingly concentrated among the super-rich class. Those who are struggling at the bottom of society are mired in deep-rooted poverty, and the basic economic, social and cultural rights of ordinary people in the United States are not properly respected or protected.

Wealth continues to be concentrated at the top, highlighting the phenomenon of “working poverty.” The imbalance between labor and capital and the income disparity between different jobs is worsening in U.S. society. “Working poverty” has made it difficult for large numbers of hard-working individuals to earn a wage that will sustain a basic living. Federal Reserve data show that in the third quarter of 2023, the highest-earning 10% of people in the U.S. owned 66.6% of the country’s total wealth; the bottom 50% owned only 2.6%. From 1978 to 2022, the salaries of CEOs of major U.S. companies skyrocketed by 1,209.2%, while the salaries of ordinary workers increased by only 15.3%. Successive years of inflation have led to wage growth for the general public falling behind price hikes, causing the actual purchasing power of the dollar to shrink. U.S. household debt is growing rapidly, putting more families into economically insecure situations. Currently, 44.2 million Americans live in households without enough to eat, including 13 million children. Hunger and food insecurity are rising again.

The health care system is severely fragmented and educational inequality is deeply rooted. The United States has the world’s most expensive health-care system, ranking first in both total and per capita health-care spending. Yet a study by the University of Southern California showed that the U.S. ranks last among major developed nations for average life expectancy. High-quality health care is a luxury affordable only to the wealthy few, with insurance companies, specialist care facilities and pharmaceutical firms making huge profits. A significant number of people either lack access to adequate medical and health protection or go bankrupt because of the unaffordable out-of-pocket costs of their insurance plans. Educational inequality in the U.S. has been an issue for a long time, with schools in poor areas lacking resources and with a variable quality of teachers leading to serious divisions and separation in the education system. This has become a major cause of social division and entrenched class structure.

There is residential segregation between rich and poor and homelessness is increasing. U.S. policies on taxation, social security and housing exploit the poor and subsidize the rich, leading to increasing segregation between classes. This separation of rich and poor has exacerbated inequality in U.S. society, inhibited social mobility for disadvantaged groups and led to an increasing concentration of poverty. A report released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Dec. 15, 2023, showed that more than 650,000 people were homeless in the U.S., a record high since statistics began in 2007. A number of factors, such as high housing costs and a severe shortage of affordable housing, have contributed to the rise in homelessness. The homeless not only face a struggle to survive but also face an increased risk of criminal conviction. The number of state and local laws criminalizing homelessness continues to rise, violence against homeless people has become more prevalent and the risk of premature death among the homeless has continued to increase.

Drug abuse continues to spread and the problem of human trafficking has gotten worse. The U.S. population is under 400 million but more than 60 million people are drug users. Marijuana legalization has been a growing trend and there has been a surge in the proportion of teenagers abusing drugs and a rise in the number of drug deaths. A report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has stated that the U.S. is the world’s largest consumer of narcotics, with about 60% of the drugs produced globally being imported into the U.S., making drug abuse the country’s biggest public health issue. The U.S. is also one of the hardest-hit areas for human trafficking and forced labor. Of the trafficked population in the U.S., 70% are immigrants, most of whom entered the country illegally. Most human trafficking victims are women and children. A study by the Coalition against Trafficking in Women estimated that 60% of unaccompanied minors crossing the border are forced into activities such as child sexual exploitation and drug trafficking by criminal groups. A large number of immigrants, ethnic minorities, children, people with disabilities and the homeless have been subjected to forced labor and exploitation, even facing life-threatening situations, becoming “victims of modern slavery.”

The inequality of basic economic, social and cultural rights within the U.S. is highlighted by the relationship between unequal systems of employment, income, health care, housing, education and welfare; systemic human rights problems have continued to get worse and discriminatory resource distribution and values are becoming more entrenched. U.S. politicians claim that the U.S. is the most important advocate for human rights, yet domestically, the erosion of human rights is a problem that is becoming more and more severe. The United States has not used its available resources to ensure that its own people enjoy their basic rights fairly but points the fingers at the human rights situation in other countries, even making a series of unreasonable “forced demands.” This is a classic double standard.

Wei Nanzhi is a researcher at the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of American Studies