III. Serious Negative Implications for American Society

The widening wealth gap is one of the main causes for the deepening social crisis in the United States. Problems including growing ethnic conflicts, increasing homelessness, urban riots and violent crimes are all closely related to it.

Social unrest is intensifying. Due to the widening polarization between the rich and the poor, the United States has witnessed frequent demonstrations in recent years. From the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 to the Black Lives Matter protests against police violence in the United States in 2020, some demonstrations have even turned violent. Through these large-scale demonstrations, the underprivileged American people have tried to combat racial discrimination, rigid class stratification and economic polarization. During the COVID-19 pandemic, although the multiple rounds of economic stimulus policies and vast subsidies rolled out by the U.S. government temporarily eased social tensions, such measures have made the debt crisis more entrenched and inflation pressure more difficult to deal with.

The human rights situation is worrying. The wealth inequality has further worsened the human rights situation in the United States. First, average life expectancy has declined. According to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, the average life expectancy in the country has dropped 2.7 years from 2019 to 2021, with 3.1 years shorter for men and 2.3 years shorter for women. Second, access to higher education is disproportionately skewed toward the rich, while the low-income group has no equal access to education. As a result, public dissatisfaction with higher education is increasing. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 82 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds from high-income families participated in college, compared with just 45 percent of those from low-income families. Third, the homeless are living in a dire situation. The growing wealth disparity, especially extreme poverty, is the main reason for homelessness. A report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development showed that more than 580,000 people were homeless in 2020, with 226,000 sleeping outside, in cars or in abandoned buildings.

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the poor the hardest. After collecting data from more than 3,200 counties in the United States, and comparing the poorest 10 percent of the counties with the richest 10 percent, the Poor People's Campaign found that the poorer counties reported coronavirus death rates nearly double those in the wealthier ones. Within the 300 counties with the highest death rates, 45 percent of the population live below the poverty line. Galax County, Virginia, had the highest death rate, which reached 1,134 deaths per 100,000 people during the pandemic. With 538 deaths per 100,000 people during the pandemic, Bronx, New York, was also among the 10 percent of counties with the highest coronavirus mortality rates. More than half of the borough's population, 56 percent of them Hispanic and 29 percent Black, live below the poverty line. The fact that COVID-19 took a heavy toll on poorer communities has further highlighted the systemic failure of the United States to address poverty.

COVID-associated orphanhood has aggravated the poverty problem. More than 200,000 children in the United States have been orphaned by the pandemic. One in every 12 orphans under the age of 18 has lost a guardian due to COVID-19. More than twice as many Hispanic and Latino children in American public schools have lost their guardians as white children. Most COVID-19 orphans have been living at the bottom of the social ladder since they were born. Losing their parents in the pandemic has made their lives even more hopeless. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the US federal government has handed out trillions of dollars in bailouts, but no legislation or executive order has been rolled out to provide help to these COVID-19 orphans.

Conclusion

Ending poverty in all its forms everywhere is an important sustainable development goal of the United Nations. Development is fundamentally for the common prosperity of the people, which should become a consensus and common action of all countries.

In the United States, the world's number one capitalist country, polarization between the rich and the poor is crying out for attention. The yawning wealth gap has become a chronic malaise of American society, leaving an indelible stain on the country's democracy and human rights record. The United States should face up to the grim reality of the ever-widening wealth gap at home, reach out to the people at the bottom, and take earnest measures to solve the problem.