Back in the U.S., the House Budget Committee held a hearing on “poverty in America.” Reverend Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, called for a moral budget, framing the epidemic of poverty as a “moral crisis.”

Rev. William Barber: “It is tragic in a society where our first constitutional duty is to establish justice and promote the general welfare—the general welfare—that we will allow the injustice of poverty—43.5% of people are poverty and low-wealth, and people here who could teach this society—and we would walk away from our constitutional values and walk away from our spiritual values, that tell us that it is dangerous for a nation not to lift up the poor.”

Reverend Dr. Barber called the systemic inequalities in the United States a “direct result of policy decisions” that work to keep 140 million people in conditions of poverty.