Bill Summary
This resolution calls for a third Reconstruction in the United States to address poverty and low wages, recognizing the interconnectedness of poverty with systemic racism, lack of access to healthcare, and other injustices. It also outlines various measures to create a more just and equitable society, such as guaranteeing quality healthcare for all, enacting debt relief, expanding and protecting voting rights, and addressing racial inequities. It also encourages states and cities to adopt similar policies.
Possible Impacts
1. The third Reconstruction proposed in this resolution would prioritize the needs of the 140 million poor and low-income individuals in the United States, potentially providing relief and support for those struggling with poverty and low wages.
2. The resolution also highlights the need to address systemic racism and its impact on marginalized communities, including the disproportionate number of deaths among the poor due to lack of access to healthcare.
3. Proposed measures such as raising the minimum wage, expanding unemployment insurance, and guaranteeing access to clean water and quality education for all could greatly benefit those living in poverty and low-income households, potentially improving their quality of life.
[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 438 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
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.
Watson Coleman, Mr. Kahele, Mr. DeSaulnier, Mr. Cicilline, Ms. Meng,
Mr. Garcia 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 resolution; 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 entwined with the
injustices of systemic racism, the denial of health care and ecological
devastation, militarism, and the distorted moral narrative of religious
nationalism that seeks to blame the poor instead of addressing systems
that cause poverty;
Whereas there are devastating consequences to these injustices, including that
250,000 die every year due to poverty and inequality alone;
Whereas our entire society suffers when over 40 percent of the country cannot
fulfill their potential or fully participate 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 sustained 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 pandemic;
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, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas,
Virginia), over 40 million in Appalachia (Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky,
Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, 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 million in the Midwest deindustrialized States
(Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin), 11 million
in the Northeast (Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, 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, economic security, education, housing,
jobs, policing, incarceration, 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 redistricting, restricting early
voting and voting hours, purging 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 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 workers 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 immigrants, including 5
million undocumented immigrants, and Native Hawaiians and Pacific
Islanders are the highest 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 returned;
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 requires to afford a
modest two-bedroom apartment is over $23 per hour;
Whereas there are 30 to 40 million people at risk of homelessness, and an
estimated 25 to 50 million people are facing food insecurity, including
a disproportionate share of Black, Latina/o, American Indian, Alaska
Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and multiracial households;
Whereas of the approximately 60 million adults with disabilities in the country,
26 percent are living below the poverty line, 10 percent are uninsured,
and 7 million students with disabilities are enrolled in our public
schools;
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 transportation, 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 underfunded, to the extent that only one-
quarter of eligible families received TANF or Federal housing
assistance, SNAP (food stamps) were reduced in 2017 to approximately
$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 trillion, and half of our
families are having difficulty meeting 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 communities of color are hit first and worst
by climate change, pollution, extreme weather, climate disaster,
ecological devastation, and related health disparities, including 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 United States waters, and 1,100 coal ash
ponds, all of which are disproportionately proximate to poor
communities;
Whereas decades of residential segregation continue to expose, especially, Black
communities to greater air pollution, as well as Latina/o, Asian and
Pacific Islander, and poor and low-wealth communities;
Whereas Native and Indigenous reservations cover just 2 percent 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
complete 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 impacting our health,
well-being, and general welfare, 53 cents of every Federal discretionary
dollar go to the Pentagon, while only 15 cents go toward antipoverty
programs;
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 received over $7.4 billion
worth of equipment from the Department 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 victim in their
lifetimes;
Whereas our strength as a Nation is greater when we welcome newcomers and
immigrants, and immigrant families are vital members of our communities,
yet our broken immigration system is harmful to immigrants and our
society as a whole, it is plagued by backlogs, processing delays, and
overly complex policies, it criminalizes migration and prioritizes
detention, deportation, and the economic 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
incarceration, policing, immigration, and border enforcement, 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 unbearable 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'';
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 Reconstruction 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) it is the sense of Congress to--
(A) recognize that--
(i) this country is founded on the moral
commitment to establish justice, ensure
domestic tranquility, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare and secure
the blessings of liberty;
(ii) equal protection under the law is
nonnegotiable; and
(iii) it is a moral abomination that there
are more than 140 million people in this
country who are poor, low-wealth, or one
emergency away from economic ruin;
(B) recognize that the United States Federal budget
is a moral document that exposes the priorities and
values of our Nation, however, addressing poverty has
not been a top legislative or budget priority; and
(C) recognize that these times require moral
policies aimed at fully addressing the interlocking
injustices of systemic racism, poverty, the denial of
health care and ecological devastation, militarism, and
the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism,
as a third Reconstruction to build an equitable,
thriving, and resilient economy from the bottom up; and
(2) Congress commits to heal the Nation, beginning over the
next two years, by--
(A) prioritizing and centering the needs of the 140
million in laws and legislation, including in
infrastructure development, by--
(i) updating the poverty measure to reflect
what it takes to have a decent standard of
living in the United States today and to
establish a new standard for social welfare
programs that permanently expand welfare
benefits, provide cash assistance programs, and
guarantee adequate incomes;
(ii) raising the minimum wage to a living
wage and guaranteeing the right to form and
join unions for all workers;
(iii) expanding unemployment insurance and
ensuring paid family and medical leave for all
workers;
(iv) implementing a Federal jobs guarantee
to increase public investments and
infrastructure in poor and low-income
communities that prioritize green and socially
beneficial industries, public health, public
education, care work, public transit and roads,
public utilities, broadband, sanitation and
water services, climate resilience, sustainable
food production and distribution, libraries,
fire stations, and cultural work;
(v) guaranteeing safe and quality housing
for all by ending all evictions, cancelling
past due rent and mortgage payments and
expanding the stock of affordable and public
housing, as well as public housing and rental
assistance, rather than expanding the shelter
system;
(vi) guaranteeing the right to water by
ending water and utility shut offs and making
clean water and sanitation services accessible
to all;
(vii) guaranteeing accessible, diverse,
safe, high-quality, equitable public education
and accessible education infrastructure from
pre-K-12 for all children, ensuring that higher
education is free to everyone who wants to
attend, and protecting and expanding public
resources for students with disabilities;
(viii) guaranteeing quality health care for
all, enacting a universal single payer national
health care program that puts people ahead of
profits, expanding our public health
infrastructure to better address social
determinants of health, investing in Native
American health through fully funding the
Indian Health Service and social support for
Native Americans, and investing critical
resources for health care services and
infrastructure in urban and rural underserved
communities;
(ix) enacting relief from student debt,
housing debt, utilities debt, medical debt, and
other household and personal debt that cannot
be paid; and
(x) ensuring that State, local, and Tribal
governments are adequately funded so as to
avoid bankruptcy or fiscal crisis;
(B) expanding and protecting the right to vote,
including by--
(i) restoring the full power of the Voting
Rights Act by updating the preclearance formula
to cover all States and political subdivisions
with deep-rooted histories of voter suppression
and any and all jurisdictions that recently
passed voter suppression laws or utilized voter
suppression policies or tactics;
(ii) making election day a national
holiday;
(iii) establishing a fair redistricting
process that eliminates all forms of racist and
political gerrymandering, allows public input,
and guarantees that every vote counts the same;
(iv) increasing polling locations so all
eligible voters have equitable access to the
polls;
(v) implementing no-excuse mail-in voting
in every State and requiring all States to
offer early voting to extend equitable
timeframes and polling locations;
(vi) modernizing voter registration by
instituting online, same day, and automatic
voter registration; and
(vii) ensuring the right to vote for
formerly and currently incarcerated people;
(C) complementing existing efforts and legislation
to eliminate persistent racial inequities in education,
health care, housing, jobs, wages, Social Security and
veteran benefits, land ownership, financial assistance,
food security, voting rights, and the justice system
that are rooted in our Nation's history of violence and
dispossession of Native and Indigenous peoples, 250
years of chattel slavery, systemic racism, and unjust
immigration policies at the expense of Black, Latina/o,
Asian American and Pacifier Islander, and Native
Hawaiian peoples, including through--
(i) a national commission to study and
develop proposals on reparations for African
Americans; and
(ii) a national truth, racial healing and
transformation commission, which can include
recommendations for restorative processes and
reparations for Indigenous and other
dispossessed people;
(D) protecting the constitutional rights of
assembly and free speech, including from critical
infrastructure legislation and other antiprotest
legislation, including by--
(i) removing criminal penalties, fines, or
other costs for protest activities;
(ii) protecting all constitutional activity
that occurs in the course of a protest; and
(iii) retaining liability for public or
private actors for causing harm to protesters;
(E) enacting comprehensive and just immigration
reform, including by--
(i) demilitarizing the southern border and
immigration enforcement, closing Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and
Removal Operations, and limiting staff and
authority of the Border Patrol;
(ii) repealing and redressing mandatory
detentions, deportations, child detentions and
family separations and reuniting families;
(iii) ensuring regular and timely access to
legal documentation and residency; and
(iv) making public welfare programs
available and accessible to all immigrants,
regardless of legal status;
(F) ensuring all the rights of Native and
Indigenous peoples and Tribal nations, including by
honoring treaties, guaranteeing the right to the free
expression of their religion, the right to Native and
sacred lands, and otherwise protecting against
legislation or land transfers that violate these sacred
rights;
(G) embracing a bold agenda to transform the
economy away from climate chaos to a green renewable
energy economy that prioritizes poor and low-wealth
frontline communities and builds up publicly owned and
controlled green energy infrastructure, including by--
(i) investing in a green infrastructure
package that provides for equitable public
transit, fixes roads and bridges, ensures
equitable and affordable housing, education,
and care work and access to broadband,
electricity, water, sanitation, and other
public utilities, expands public health
infrastructure, sustainable food production and
distribution, and community-based institutions
like libraries, fire stations, and recreation
facilities;
(ii) dramatically curtailing air, water,
land, and climate pollution; and
(iii) creating resilient jobs to help
communities prepare for and respond to climate-
related disasters and promoting a just worker
transition;
(H) demilitarizing United States foreign policy,
borders, and policing, including by--
(i) cutting the military budget by at least
10 percent and providing for a just transition
for workers in militarized industries;
(ii) ending the forever wars, repealing
existing Authorizations for the Use of Military
Force, and restoring Congress's war powers,
including over limited uses of force such as
airstrikes and drone attacks;
(iii) recognizing the three pillars of
foreign policy (diplomacy, development, and
defense) and pursuing diplomacy over war,
including reconsidering forward military
deployments, instituting a nuclear no-first-use
commitment, and moving toward nuclear
disarmament and curtailing the use of broad
economic sanctions that create mass suffering;
(iv) repealing programs like the 1033
program that provides military equipment and
training to domestic law enforcement agencies;
and
(v) ending mass incarceration and violent
policing, based on the demands of grassroots
organizations and communities who are most
egregiously impacted by these injustices;
(I) enacting fair taxes on corporations, Wall
Street, and the wealthy, including by--
(i) repealing the 2017 tax cuts that
reduced the corporate tax rate and the top
marginal tax rate;
(ii) repealing tax breaks on fossil fuels;
(iii) repealing tax breaks for pass-through
income;
(iv) instituting a financial transaction
tax on Wall Street;
(v) instituting a wealth tax;
(vi) taxing investment income the same as
income from work; and
(vii) otherwise making the tax code less
punitive for poor and low-income people;
(J) alongside cuts to the Pentagon budget and fair
taxation, using deficit spending to meet these pressing
needs so as to end systemic racism, poverty, ecological
devastation, and militarism and address the distorted
moral narrative of religious nationalism; and
(K) encouraging States and cities to enact policies
that follow the direction provided by this resolution.
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