Extreme Poverty and Human Rights: A Case Study of the United States of America

Arjun Sengupta
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Arjun Sengupta: Chairman, Centre for Development and Human Rights, New Delhi, India,

Bangladesh Development Studies, 2010, vol. 33, issue 1-2, 275-310

Abstract: This paper presents the problems of poverty in the U.S. from the perspective of the notion of “extreme poverty,” regarded as a violation of human rights. By choosing the United States as the case study, this paper seeks to illustrate that extreme poverty is a pervasive societal problem, irrespective of the level of income of a country. The case of the United States is particularly interesting as it presented an apparent paradox: the wealthiest country on earth has also the highest incidence of poverty amongst the rich industrialised nations and even higher than many developing countries. The conditions of extreme poverty in a country such as the US, with both the resources and the institutions to solve the problem but unwilling to do so due to the lack of political motivation, can be, much more plausibly than in any other country, considered as violation of human rights. The paper provides a broad overview of various dimensions of extreme poverty in the United States through the lens of the human rights framework and offers some policy suggestions.

Keywords: Poverty and Human Rights; The United States of America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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