Poverty 4th Leading Cause of Death in U.S. as Calls Grow for Third Reconstruction: Bishop Barber

this is democracy Now democracynow.org The War and Peace report I'm Amy Goodman in New York with Juan Gonzalez in Chicago Democratic Congress members pramila jayapole and Barbara Lee have introduced a resolution called the third reconstruction to end poverty in the United States by addressing systemic racism economic and public health and Equity militarism and other issues it was drafted with input from the Poor People's Campaign which

just led a three-day Poor People's campaign moral poverty action Congress in Washington D.C this comes as child poverty is on the rise after the expanded child tax credit was allowed to expire and hundreds of thousands are being kicked off Medicaid a recent medical paper found poverty is the fourth leading cause of death now in the United States for more we're joined by Bishop Dr William Barber

co-chair of the four people's campaign president of repairers of the breach founding director of the center for a public Theology and public policy at Yale Divinity School Bishop Barber welcome back to democracy Now can you talk about why the Poor People's campaign held a mock funeral starting with the Supreme Court and going to the U.S Capitol you've talked about poverty being a death sentence and how

what was enacted during covid that amazingly in some cases saved lives now has been taken away and more people are dying we did it Amy because of how grotesque and immoral it is that poverty is a forfeiting cause of death and that's a conservative figure because the researchers didn't even deal with children 15 years and and younger I mean just say that poverty fourth leading cause

of death higher than homicide higher than respiratory diseases we have the highest child poverty rate of any country Like Us in terms of economic power and it's time we have to intensify what we're doing so at the moral poverty action Congress last week sponsored by preparers of the breach in the Cairo Center hundreds of poor and lower people over a thousand and Faith leaders and economists

can Public Health people came together for to to form a 30-state strategy to intensify to force our nation's leaders to confront the American deaf centers of poverty which is totally unnecessary uh and this is before covet poverty was a fourth leading cause of death before covert during covet 330 000 people died from the lack of Health Care not from cobit poor people down to the rate

three to five times higher during covet of the hybrids High Times of covet not from covet but from the lack of access to the things that would have prevented their death and the question we have to ask is why do we hear so much about crime rates and opioids and gun violence in America but poverty kills more people than all of those things crime rate opioids

homicide gun violence why is there no surgeon general's warning on low-wage jobs as a form of death so we join with representative Lee and jayapal to introduce the third reconstruction resolution ending poverty and low well saying here are 20 policies and does the Congress have the resolve not a Democratic resolver or republican resolve but a human reserve a moral resolve to eradicate poverty and other systems

of Injustice which can be done this death is unnecessary it is policy yeah it's publicly murder and we met also with over 400 congressperson with Shoma Jeffrey tried to meet but McConnell and McCarthy they wouldn't meet with us that they refused to allow us even to meet on the steps of the Capitol but we kept going because living wages could stop death Health Care could stop

death child poverty tax credits could stop death redistrict redirecting what the war economy could stop death voting rights could stop death because of allow people uh uh if you stop voter suppression you undermine people getting elected who then will fight against the poor and call more death and so we're intensifying uh in this coming year 2024 we're planning 30 major actions non-violent and state capitals we're

planning on June 15th of next year a massive Poor People's low-wage workers and moral march on Raleigh I mean on Washington D.C and to the polls because we're going to be mobilizing the 87 million poor lower people in this country poor know where people now make up over 30 percent of the electric generally and over 40 percent of the elected in Battleground States and in most

places poor Norway people are not voting because they feel like the system has just abandoned them so we're saying vote and change the system and that's what we have to do otherwise we become accessories to the crime of policy murder and that's what's going on right now oh well Reverend Barber you mentioned a low-wage labor as a health threat and uh the the minimum wage in

this country has not been raised of the federal minimum wage in uh 14 years and we hear all this talk about inflation uh in the country and how Americans are grappling with inflation but yet millions and millions of Americans are still working in this as you say in these low-wage jobs and Congress refuses to act on the minimum wage what will it take uh to affect

uh this simple approach uh to raising the poverty raising or eliminating the number of people who are in poverty that's right well one of the things we we talk about is when we go among poor lower people whether an Appalachia or or the Delta of Mississippi or Alabama or New York or California is listen you have power now uh in Most states if just 20 percent

of poor and low-wage workers would mobilize and vote an agenda for themselves uh they could determine who sits in the presidency in the governorship and in the Senate and and even in the house uh races both in the state and the Federal in North Carolina offenses only 19 percent that need to mobilize and Florida is four percent Georgia seven percent Michigan is one percent but the

other thing is we're put we're ashamed to people listen during covet we low-wage workers saved us we made them go to work we call them essential workers but treated them like They Were Expendable we said go to work in the most dangerous job but you don't have living wage go to work but you won't have health care go to work but you don't have paid family

this is social murder a policy murder it is wrong and it's not no longer this benign it's not just the economics of it it's the health of it as I said we should have a surgeon general's warning on low-wage job we also know that we haven't raised in 14 years so if we just raise the minimum wage to 17 an hour which is lower than actually

what a living wage ought to be but 17 an hour some 50 million Americans would come up out of poverty and low wages over 40 percent of African Americans would come up out of poverty in low weight millions of white people who and actually poor white people make up the largest number of poor and low-wage workers in this country and most poor is poor people are

the Working Poor so it's backwards and then to suggest as some faulty economists say that that that keeping wages low is the way to address inflation it's just wrong the fact of the matter is inflation has been caused by War and and by covet and by by this pandemic and if people had more money they could survive through so that's one of the reasons we I

led a delegation to meet with the president with faith leaders and impacted people met at the White House we're calling for a meeting directly with the president with the economists fake leaders and impacted people we're calling on the president to do a major bullet Pulpit speech saying we cannot as America go around this world and challenge other nations and poverty is the fourth leading cause of

death and that's a conservative figure in the wealthiest nation in the world we must call ourselves to conscience and what we're going to do is make that call have to happen we're not backing up we're intensifying because really it is about people's lives and the people that we took into the White House with them all of them had to either experienced death in their families or

death in their Community from poverty I want folk to hear that from poverty not from homicide from poverty not from respiratory disease from poverty not from diabetes but from the effects of poverty and that is just in Maryland wrong and we have to change it uh Bishop Barber as we begin to wrap up on another topic I wanted to ask about your decision to retire from

church service you gave your final sermon at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro North Carolina recently he spoke about the testimony of the explain well I talked about that because the majority of the people in the Bible whom God used had some crippling reality mentally physically or otherwise economically and yet God used them to be transformative there's a great scripture in the Bible says the stones that

the builders rejected have become the Chief Cornerstone and so I've retired from pastoral Ministry but not for Ministry I thought I'm going to Pastor the movement of the Poor Kids campaign repairs of the breach in this new center at Yale and try to raise up more and more people who see themselves as important instruments of fundamental change and we have so much work to do you

know I just watched this case out of North Carolina that case actually is a reaction to the work we did in Morrow Monday when we won we we beat extremists on uh uh um voter suppression we beat them on redistrictions you're talking about the independent state legislature Theory being obliterated by the Supreme Court exactly and the reason I raised it is because in 1868 it was

two ministers who helped lead the writing of the North Carolina Constitution after slavery that put in the Constitution the very things we now use today to fight extremists at the state level and it's important the nation knows the reason they were trying to to to get that passed and get the Supreme Court to agree with independent legislatures it's because we've been winning using the State Constitution

and we're winning because of the efforts of people of Faith long ago who fought for equality in our constitution that's what worked that I want to continue I've been pasting over 30 some plus years now it's time for me to train other ministers who are coming up and to engage as an elder and Pastor the movement and uh I I I'm humbled by the reality that

I have the opportunity to do that well Bishop Dr William Barber co-chair of the Poor People's campaign and now uh founder of the Center for Public Theology and public policy at Divinity School we want to thank you so much for being with us