The United States has the lowest rate of social mobility among the world’s rich countries, meaning “the American dream is rapidly becoming the American illusion,” he said.
“A child who is born into poverty has almost no chance of getting out of poverty in today’s United States,” he said.
Poor children have little or no access to quality nutrition for their development, to healthcare or to decent education, all of which they would need to break out of poverty, he said.
“Current trends in the United States are actually undermining democracy,” he added. “Poor people have no chance of having their voices heard, no chance of influencing public policy.”
The poor in the United States often are in prison, not allowed to vote due to criminal records or find it difficult to get to the polls, amid efforts to deter voter participation and voter registration that are key to democracy, he said.
Alston said he was struck by views he encountered across the country that people see the rich as “enterprising, altruistic, hard-working, dedicated” and the poor as “losers, scammers, people trying to profit from the system.”
Those views are promoted by politicians to justify cuts in services and tax reforms that benefit the wealthy, he said.
A “criminalization of poverty” helps create a devastating cycle of hardship, he said.
In a typical scenario, a homeless person might be fined for loitering or sleeping on a street. The amount of the fine will increase as it is unpaid, often landing the person in jail. There, they lose any job they may have had and emerge with a criminal record making it even harder to find employment.
“The spiral downwards is fueled by public policy,” he said.
The full report details an array of aspects of poverty such as the roles of race and gender, voter disenfranchisement, high rates of incarceration and the plights of veterans, he said.
