Covid Is Still Disproportionately Killing Low-Income People

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The 54th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. just passed. Dr. King was shot down while organizing low-wage sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn. At that time, he was building the Poor People’s Campaign, an effort to organize America’s poor into a force to be reckoned with. In his opposition to the Vietnam War and his promotion of a campaign to lift the load of poverty, he suggested that racism, poverty, and militarism could be dealt with only by uniting millions of poor people to change the very structure of our national life.

More than half a century later, his message remains tragically relevant in our seemingly never-ending pandemic-ridden moment, still rife with racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. Indeed, today, 60 percent more Americans are living below the official poverty line; racialized laws to suppress their votes have been passed in dozens of states; and the longest war in our history, the 20-year disaster in Afghanistan, only ended late last year, while globally conflict and bloodshed still swirl around us.

You need only check out the conditions of life for the 140 million Americans who are poor or low-income to recognize how relevant King’s message still is. Today, the poor live at the crossroads of injustice, hurt first and worst by the interlocking evils of climate change, militarism, and racism, as well as other forms of violence and inequality. With gas prices ever higher, food shortages on the rise, and a possible recession (or worse) looming, those who continue to suffer the most will be those most affected by whatever is to come.


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