America's poor becoming more destitute under Trump, UN report says

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https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/22/us/america-poverty-un-report/index.html

By Lynda Kinkade, CNN
Updated 2343 GMT (0743 HKT) June 22, 2018

Americans born into poverty are more likely than ever before to stay that way, according to a United Nations report on poverty and inequality in the US.
"The United States, one of the world's richest nations and the "land of opportunity," is fast becoming a champion of inequality," the report concluded.

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Philip Alston, a New York University law and human rights professor, led a UN study traveling across US. The group went to Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. Alabama, California, Georgia, West Virginia were among the states they visited.
"Most Americans don't care about it. They have bought the line peddled by conservative groups that poor people deserve what they are getting," Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, told CNN.
The report notes that the US has highest child mortality rate of 20 rich countries (OPEC comparison). It also has among the highest child poverty rates in the developed world, at 21%. It also considered obesity rates, income inequality and incarceration rates.

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More than 40 million Americans live in poverty, according to the US census.

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The official unemployment rate might be at record lows, but Safehouse Outreach says it's seeing an increase in the number of underemployed.
Nolan English runs the outreach program.
"At least 40% of the people we serve are working, they're holding down two to three jobs, have children, they may be trying to land on someone's couch, some live in abandoned buildings, in their cars, then they come here and they go on shift, they work," he said.

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Across the US, people working for tips can often earn as little as $2.13 an hour and have to make up the rest in tips to meet the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
"They're not livable wages, they're little tokens they're throwing, they're crumbs from your table," English said.

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More than 5 million Americans live in third world conditions also known as "absolute poverty," according to the report.
In Lowndes County, Alabama, the report found residents lacked basic sewage systems. Unable to afford a septic tank some people constructed their own homemade sewerage lines using PVC piping.
The UN study also found 19 out of 55 people tested in Alabama had hookworm. It's a disease typically found in developing countries, one that was thought to have been eradicated in the US in the 1980s.
While the issue is not new, the problem is becoming more dire under the Trump administration according to the UN.
It found Trump's policies seem "deliberately designed to remove the basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege to be earned rather than a right of citizenship."

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Forty-six million Americans depend on food banks, which is 30% above 2007 levels, according to Feeding America.
"Even people who are working full time can't afford a decent living. They do need food stamps. They do need the sort of assistance that government can provide, but instead what we see is a constant cut back in all of those benefits by this administration," Alston said.