Poverty is a policy choice

In 2013, NC Republicans won a supermajority in the General Assembly for the first time in 100 years. In response, Reverend William J. Barber II launched Moral Monday. Every week, thousands of us participated in rallies at Halifax Mall, putting ourselves on the line to stand up for public education, Medicaid Expansion, and eliminating barriers to voting.

We were worried: The GOP had rigged the electoral map, had a supermajority in the NC General Assembly and a Republican Governor. There was nothing to stop the carnage. They slashed the corporate income tax and ended a major tax credit for the working poor; reduced unemployment benefits; repealed the Racial Justice Act; tried to make it harder to vote; refused to spend more on Public Education but allowed expenditures to pay for private school tuition; and passed now partially repealed HB2—the bill requiring transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their gender at birth.

The only tool we had were our voices — and civil disobedience. Ten years later, looking back on the start of Moral Monday, Reverend Barber said:

“Every step in American history has required, at some point, a movement that challenges injustices not on policy but on moral principles. 

…if you believe in the “moral arc of the universe,” or if you believe in the value of the Constitution, then when you look at a piece of public policy, you don’t ask, “Is it right or is it left? Is it Democrat or is it Republican?” … You ask, “Does it establish justice? … Does this promote the general welfare? Does it ensure equal protection under the law, regardless of creed, regardless of sexuality?” 

If it doesn’t meet those standards, then we challenge those kinds of laws as being immoral. They are far less than what our deepest religious and constitutional values call us to be."

In the years since then, the movement has expanded across the country as The Poor People's Campaign (PPC): A National Call for Moral Revival. PPC calls for achievement of an ambitious 17-point agenda that focuses squarely on the needs of poor and low-income America, a truly moral agenda. 

The PPC agenda is quite different from the policies advocated by conservative evangelical Christians who call for ending women's right to abortion, eliminating treatment for transgender youth and adults, and banning books— aiming to take away rights from every citizen rather than enabling all of us to have access to the basic supports for a safe and healthy family life.

The need for such a Moral Agenda is brought home by the numbers here in North Carolina. According to the data provided by the Poor People's Campaign (PPC), 44% of people in our state are poor or low-income— defined by the PPC as making less than $50,000/year. That's a total of 4.6 million North Carolinians, 3.5 million of whom are eligible voters, making up 41.45% of the electorate.

Just imagine if all those voters were to cast ballots in 2024…and voted Democratic!

What would it take to give these voters a reason to go to the polls? Stated simply: concrete and specific policies that aimed to achieve the PPC agenda. 

What if Democrats campaigned on policies that could make a difference between a life lived in poverty and ill-health and a life of comfort and opportunity?

Policies like: 

• raising the minimum wage to a living wage. The minimum wage in North Carolina is $7.25/hour. Raising it to $15.00/hour still amounts to only $30,000 year. And, 37% of the state's workforce earns less than that; as a result 328,949 households were behind on rent or housing payments at the beginning of 2023.

• guaranteeing quality housing for all by expanding public and affordable housing and rental assistance. 

• assuring that every family has access to quality health care they can afford. Now that Medicaid expansion finally passed, many more poor and low income families have access to care. But more needs to be done to ensure that poverty is not the fourth highest cause of death in the U.S. – after heart disease, cancer, and smoking. 

Supports that Biden and the Democrats put in place for families during the pandemic show that preventing poverty is a policy choice. Furthermore, providing Medicaid for all and subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, expanding the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit, stopping evictions and foreclosures — did reduce poverty. 

Biden wanted to make those benefits permanent, but the Republican U.S. House of Representatives refused to support them. Like the NC Republican majority, they would rather cut corporate taxes than fully fund public education; take away women's right to abortion than fully fund public health across the state; and cut regulations that limit pollution of our air and water than invest in affordable housing in safe neighborhoods.

These are all policy choices, and the PPC wants elected officials and candidates running for elected office at every level — whether Democrats or Republicans — to put them at the top of their agenda too. 

This is how we bring people out to vote. This is how we win elections. This is how we build a just economy that invests in all our people.

Let's make sure our campaigns reflect this vision.

For more information on the Poor People's Campaign visit https://ppc-nc.org.