Third Reconstruction: Fully addressing poverty and low wages from the bottom up.

IV 117TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. RES. 438 Third Reconstruction: Fully addressing poverty and low wages from the bottom up. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MAY 25, 2021 Ms. LEE of California (for herself, Ms. NORTON, Ms. BUSH, Ms. SEWELL, Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin, Ms. JACOBS of California, Mr. RASKIN, Mrs. WAT- SON COLEMAN, Mr. KAHELE, Mr. DESAULNIER, Mr. CICILLINE, Ms. MENG, Mr. GARCI´A of Illinois, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois, Mr. LIEU, Mr. SAN NICOLAS, Mr. VARGAS, Ms. JACKSON LEE, Mr. RUSH, Ms. TLAIB, Mr. LOWENTHAL, Mr. JONES, Mr. GREEN of Texas, Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi, Mr. CARSON, Mr. KHANNA, Ms. ADAMS, Ms. NEWMAN, and Mr. MCGOVERN) submitted the following res- olution; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Reform RESOLUTION Third Reconstruction: Fully addressing poverty and low wages from the bottom up. Whereas there are over 140 million people who are poor, low- wealth, or just one emergency away from economic ruin in the United States; Whereas the injustice of poverty and low wealth is deeply en- twined with the injustices of systemic racism, the denial of health care and ecological devastation, militarism, and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism that VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:45 May 26, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR438.IH HR438 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 2 •HRES 438 IH seeks to blame the poor instead of addressing systems that cause poverty; Whereas there are devastating consequences to these injus- tices, including that 250,000 die every year due to pov- erty and inequality alone; Whereas our entire society suffers when over 40 percent of the country cannot fulfill their potential or fully partici- pate in society; Whereas these widespread conditions cannot be explained by blaming individual behaviors, nor are they inherent to our economy or society, but rather they are created and sus- tained by unjust and immoral laws, policies, systems, and structures; Whereas we need the resolve to pass moral and just laws and policies that fully address these interlocking injustices, which have only deepened during the COVID–19 pan- demic; Whereas before the pandemic, 140 million people were poor, low-wealth, or one emergency away from economic ruin, including 52 percent of children (39 million), 45 percent of women (74 million), 60 percent of Black people (24 million), 64 percent of Latina/o people (38 million), 40 percent of Asian and Pacific Islander people (8 million), 59 percent of Native and Indigenous people (2 million), and 33 percent of White people (66 million); Whereas the 140 million live in every region of the Nation, including 50 million in the South (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mis- sissippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia), over 40 million in Appalachia (Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, North Caro- VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:45 May 26, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR438.IH HR438 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 3 •HRES 438 IH lina, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia), with 8.6 million in New York alone, over 40 million in the Southwest/Border (Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, Utah), with 20 million in California alone, 20 mil- lion in the Midwest deindustrialized States (Ohio, Penn- sylvania, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin), 11 mil- lion in the Northeast (Connecticut, Delaware, Massachu- setts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont), over 7 million in the Northwest (Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming), nearly 7 million in the Great Plains (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota), nearly 700,000 in Hawaii, and 300,000 in Washington, DC; Whereas systemic racism takes the form of laws and policies that target people of color, especially poor people of color, to create and deepen inequities in democracy, health, eco- nomic security, education, housing, jobs, policing, incar- ceration, criminalization, and immigration, which has contributed to the disproportionate impact of COVID–19 on poor communities of color; Whereas, since 2010, at least 25 States had passed new voter restrictions, imposing racist gerrymandering and redis- tricting, restricting early voting and voting hours, purg- ing voter rolls, closing polling stations, and instituting onerous voter ID laws, and since the 2020 elections, 43 States have introduced over 250 new bills that further these restrictions and limit mail-in voting; Whereas voter suppression laws disproportionately target poor, Black, brown, and Native people, they also pave the way for immoral policies that deny health care, living VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:45 May 26, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR438.IH HR438 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 4 •HRES 438 IH wages, immigrant rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and more; Whereas nearly 50 million people are working for low wages, including at least 40 percent of Black and Latina/o work- ers and approximately 30 percent of White workers, and a majority (59 percent) of low-wage workers are women; Whereas approximately 6 million essential workers are immi- grants, including 5 million undocumented immigrants, and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are the high- est represented subgroup among essential workers; Whereas more than 25 million workers have been directly hurt by the economic impacts of the pandemic, and more than half of the low-wage jobs that were lost have not re- turned; Whereas women carry a disproportionate share of unpaid care work, which would total $1.5 trillion at the current minimum wage ($7.25); Whereas the average hourly wage that a full-time worker re- quires to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment is over $23 per hour; Whereas there are 30 to 40 million people at risk of home- lessness, and an estimated 25 to 50 million people are facing food insecurity, including a disproportionate share of Black, Latina/o, American Indian, Alaska Native, Na- tive Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and multiracial house- holds; Whereas of the approximately 60 million adults with disabil- ities in the country, 26 percent are living below the pov- erty line, 10 percent are uninsured, and 7 million stu- dents with disabilities are enrolled in our public schools; VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:45 May 26, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR438.IH HR438 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 5 •HRES 438 IH Whereas the official poverty measure (OPM) is an inadequate measure that does not account for today’s cost of living, including child care, health insurance, and transpor- tation, and even the supplemental poverty measure (SPM) does not account for all modern necessities or debt burdens that siphon household resources away from meeting basic needs; Whereas the average cost of living in the Nation amounts to more than twice the OPM and SPM, close to $60,000 for a household of four; Whereas due to these limitations in the measure of poverty, social welfare and antipoverty programs have been under- funded, to the extent that only one-quarter of eligible families received TANF or Federal housing assistance, SNAP (food stamps) were reduced in 2017 to approxi- mately $1.40 per meal, and Head Start reaches only 54 percent of eligible 3- to 4-year-olds; Whereas household debt burdens have grown to over $14 tril- lion, and half of our families are having difficulty meet- ing usual household expenses, including approximately three-quarters of low-income households and Black and Latina/o families; Whereas alongside mounting poverty, low wealth, debt, and economic desperation, poor communities and poor com- munities of color are hit first and worst by climate change, pollution, extreme weather, climate disaster, eco- logical devastation, and related health disparities, includ- ing during the COVID–19 pandemic; Whereas an expansion of oil and fossil fuel infrastructure led to over 5,000 significant oil and gas leaks or ruptures on United States pipelines, more than 2,400 oil spills in VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:45 May 26, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR438.IH HR438 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 6 •HRES 438 IH United States waters, and 1,100 coal ash ponds, all of which are disproportionately proximate to poor commu- nities; Whereas decades of residential segregation continue to ex- pose, especially, Black communities to greater air pollu- tion, as well as Latina/o, Asian and Pacific Islander, and poor and low-wealth communities; Whereas Native and Indigenous reservations cover just 2 per- cent of the United States, and ancestral and sacred lands are at risk of being devastated by mining, extraction, and pollution, because of their vast mineral and natural wealth; Whereas tens of millions of Americans cannot afford access to clean water, 44 million people are living with water systems that violated the Safe Drinking Water Act, and approximately 540,000 households lack access to com- plete plumbing, with Native American households more likely to face water access issues than other households; Whereas despite these threats to health, 119 rural hospitals have been closed in 41 States since 2010, and 87 million people were uninsured or underinsured leading into the COVID–19 pandemic; Whereas the United States has the worst-ranking public health outcomes among our peer countries, including the lowest life expectancy and highest infant and maternal mortality rates, even though we spend more than twice the amount per capita on health expenditures compared to other industrialized nations; Whereas rather than addressing these pressing conditions im- pacting our health, well-being, and general welfare, 53 cents of every Federal discretionary dollar go to the Pen- VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:45 May 26, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR438.IH HR438 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 7 •HRES 438 IH tagon, while only 15 cents go toward antipoverty pro- grams; Whereas experts have identified up to $350 billion in defense spending cuts that would both save resources and keep the country safe and secure; Whereas the United States wars since 2001 have killed more than 800,000 people and displaced 37 million more; Whereas local and State law enforcement agencies have re- ceived over $7.4 billion worth of equipment from the De- partment of Defense since 1990; Whereas of the 19 million veterans in the Nation, 5.4 million are on disability, nearly 38,000 are homeless, and 7 to 18 percent of military families and veterans are on food assistance; Whereas the United States is home to less than 5 percent of the world’s population, but accounts for 20 percent of the world’s incarcerated people, most of whom are poor and the poorest of whom are women and people of color, and 74 percent of those held in jail have not been convicted of any crime, but are too poor to be free before trial; Whereas there have been over 1,000 police killings every year since 2013, with Black, Native, and Indigenous people more likely to be killed by police, yet 98 percent of police killings since 2013 have not resulted in a criminal charge; Whereas nearly every American will know a gun violence vic- tim in their lifetimes; Whereas our strength as a Nation is greater when we wel- come newcomers and immigrants, and immigrant families are vital members of our communities, yet our broken im- migration system is harmful to immigrants and our soci- VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:45 May 26, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR438.IH HR438 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 8 •HRES 438 IH ety as a whole, it is plagued by backlogs, processing delays, and overly complex policies, it criminalizes migra- tion and prioritizes detention, deportation, and the eco- nomic and political exclusion of immigrants, and it relies on a largely for-profit detention system that detains tens of thousands of people and separates families; Whereas although immigrants, regardless of status, pay more than $490 billion in taxes, they are virtually excluded from all safety net programs; Whereas White supremacist and far-right extremist groups have been recognized by the Federal Government as a predominant domestic security threat, however, every year we spend over $1 trillion in endless wars, mass in- carceration, policing, immigration, and border enforce- ment, none of which make us safer; Whereas billionaires have added more than $1.3 trillion to their collective wealth from March 2020 to February 2021; Whereas these interlocking injustices are precipitating the deconstruction of our democracy and imposing unbear- able costs to our economy, including that $1 trillion is lost every year to the costs of child poverty, $1.9 trillion of government revenue was lost by lowering the corporate tax rate in 2017, $6.4 trillion has been lost in endless wars over the past two decades, the costs of the pandemic are estimated to be at least $16 trillion, and inaction on climate change threatens the loss of life itself; Whereas there was record turnout among the 64 million poor and low-income eligible voters in the 2020 elections, who did not vote for a return to ‘‘normal’’; VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:45 May 26, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR438.IH HR438 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 9 •HRES 438 IH Whereas moral policy that prioritizes the 140 million can lift this Nation from the bottom up, rather than waiting for wealth to trickle down; and Whereas drawing on the transformational history of the first Reconstruction after the Civil War and the second Recon- struction of the civil rights struggles in the 20th century, this moment demands a third Reconstruction to revive our political commitment to implement moral laws and policies that can heal and transform the Nation: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That— 1 (1) it is the sense of Congress to— 2 (A) recognize that— 3 (i) this country is founded on the 4 moral commitment to establish justice, en- 5 sure domestic tranquility, provide for the 6 common defense, promote the general wel- 7 fare and secure the blessings of liberty; 8 (ii) equal protection under the law is 9 nonnegotiable; and 10 (iii) it is a moral abomination that 11 there are more than 140 million people in 12 this country who are poor, low-wealth, or 13 one emergency away from economic ruin; 14 (B) recognize that the United States Fed- 15 eral budget is a moral document that exposes 16 the priorities and values of our Nation, how- 17 VerDat [Text truncated for display. Full text available on Congress.gov.]