About the Campaign: Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Campaign?

The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign is a national effort led by poor and homeless women, men and children of all races to raise the issue of poverty as a human rights violation.

In the United States, the richest country in the world, increasing numbers of people - especially children - are having to struggle harder and harder to survive. Despite record corporate profits most people in this country are experiencing falling wages, corporate downsizing and underemployment. Recent welfare reform has, like in many countries around the world, led to increasing hunger, homelessness, and actual death.

It's in response to these crises that people under economic assault from across the country are coming together in the Poor People's Economic Rights Campaign.
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Who makes up the Campaign?

The Campaign is made up of over 35 organizations of poor people from across the United States of America, from public housing residents facing the demolition of their housing in Chicago to welfare recipients about to be cut off assistance in Philadelphia; from farmworkers working for poverty wages in Florida to workfare workers organizing in San Fransisco.

The Campaign is spearheaded by the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU), an organization of poor and homeless women, men and children from all races struggling both to survive and to end poverty. (Kensington, located in North Philadelphia, is the poorest area in the state of Pennsylvania, USA.) KWRU is an affiliate of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, AFSCME, AFL-CIO, an affiliate of the Labor Party and a chapter of the National Welfare Rights Union.

The University of the Poor is the Campaign's web-centered educational arm.
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What actions are part of the Campaign?

During the Month of June, 1997, poor and homeless families from all over the United States marched ten days from Philadelphia to the United Nations in New York City to charge the United States government with violating the economic human rights of its people. This March for Our Lives was the first step of the Economic Human Rights Campaign.

In June of 1998, the New Freedom Bus travelled across the country, gathering the stories of these human rights violations to present to the United Nations and world community. Poor families from all over the United States traveled in this bus for a month to thirty five poor urban and rural communities.

In October of 1999, organizations of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign joined with other organizations of the poor from across North and South America in the March of the Americas. For a month, we marched from Washington, DC to the United Nations in New York City.

In June of 2000, during the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, thousands joined our March for Economic Human Rights, as we marched through the center of Philadelphia without permission to bring attention to the economic crisis more and more families face in this country.

The campaign has created the University of the Poor, a web-centered institution for sharing experiences, educational curriculum, and fostering exchanges betwen the different groups in the Campaign.

Our legal team has filed a case, at the Inter-American Commission of Organization of American States, The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign vs. the United States. This case is another attempt to hold the United States accountable for economic human rights abuses being caused by downsizing, poverty and welfare reform in the US today. (Read the case in PDF format (140K). Requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader.)
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What are Economic Human Rights?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the international standard for Human Rights, expresses the rights due every human being - including food, housing, and living wage jobs. While claiming to defend human rights, the United States has consistantly ignored and undermined the global consensus on economic human rights. Economic Human Rights are mainly expressed in articles 23, 25, and 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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