Economic Bill of Rights

The Right to a Job that Pays a Living Wage:

The point of having an economic system is to address the needs of the population. It is a way for the population to contribute their time and efforts into a system that produces the goods and services needed by the population.

Right now, we have millions of Americans that work full time and hardly make enough to take care of themselves, let alone any loved ones. If you work full time, then you should make a living wage.

There are different approaches we can take to enacting such a policy. If there is a need that the private sector isn't properly addressing, then we can have the federal or state governments step in and provide jobs that address those needs. And of course have those jobs pay a living wage.

Another approach would be to make the minimum wage a living wage. This policy would require measures to help small businesses and startups. For example, the government can subsidise wages on the condition that CEOs don't make more than five times their lowest paid worker. Once the company is able to function in a way that it can provide a living wage to all of its employees, then CEOs are more free to give themselves higher salaries.

The Right to a Voice in the Workplace through a Union or Collective Bargaining:

There is an inherent imbalance between employee or employer. It is typically much easier for a corporation to let go of an employee and find a replacement than it is for an employee to quit a job and find another job.

The United States has a union density of about 10%. When you take a look at countries that have a higher density, you'll find that there are no minimum wage laws on the books. This is because workers have the ability to negotiate their wages in a meaningful way.

“At will” is the default for many state employment laws. This means that the employee or employer can end employment for any reason that isn't explicitly illegal. For example, It's illegal to fire someone based on protected characteristics like race, sex, age, religion, disability, or national origin, or for retaliating against an employee for reporting illegal activity. While these protections are good, they don't go far enough.

We can approach this through good legislation and administration. The National Labor Relations Board has done some great things in the recent past to help Starbucks and Amazon employees unionize in spite of corporate opposition.

We can also consider enacting collective bargaining for sectors of our industry. In California, fast food workers have been granted a union by the state. For various industries in our country, we can empower workers by providing them with a structure for collective bargaining.

The Right to Quality Health Care:

It shouldn't matter how much money you have in your bank account, as an American citizen, if you need access to quality health care, then you should have access to quality health care. And you should not be buried in a mountain of medical debt.

Economically speaking, a healthier population would make for a more productive population.

There are many Americans that wish to pursue the American Dream and start a business, but they don't because they can't afford health coverage for themselves, their families, and or their would-be employees.

Tying access to health care to employment has been a disastrous policy. During the Covid 19 Pandemic, millions of Americans got thrown off of their health coverage during the lockdowns. Our citizens lost access to health care not just at a time, but because of a disease spreading across our nation. This situation alone warrants a rethink of our healthcare system.

Having a policy like Medicare for all would address much of the problems we have in our healthcare system. But we would do well to go beyond this policy. Legislators should negotiate all drug prices, crack down on price gouging from hospitals, and invest in pain points in the healthcare industry to make certain treatments and procedures more cost effective. And if the private sector isn't willing to play ball, then we can look into federalizing parts or all of our healthcare industry.

Properly addressing healthcare includes addressing addiction. Drug addiction is a healthcare problem, not a criminal problem. End the drug war.

The Right to Free Higher Education or Trade School:

Having an educated population benefits everyone. A complex society that provides all of our modern miracles requires people with collaborative knowledge and expertise. If we are going to build a sustainable future, then we will need lots of people to participate that have the expertise needed.

We live in a world of rapid innovation. AI is intended to take out millions of jobs in the coming years. If we want a carbon-free energy infrastructure, then there will be plenty in the fossil fuel industry who will lose their jobs. Having higher education and trade school provided at no cost at the point of service is important for retraining our citizens to answer the call to tomorrow's problems. All federal student debt can also be eliminated.

Eliminating student debt doesn't address the root causes of the high cost of our modern higher education system. We can develop a more cost effective approach to modern universities.

Bringing down the cost of education for healthcare professionals will have the cascading effect of lowering the salary requirements for these professionals. Imagine how much lower doctor's salaries could be if they didn't have seven plus years of higher education expenses to worry about.

The Right to Good, Affordable Housing:

Stable housing is foundational to building a functional life and raising a family. Having so many people on the street while landlords are keeping some of their rental properties empty to maximise revenue is unconscionable.

Many people may be on the streets because of drug problems. But many people have a drug problem because they are out on the streets. Many shelters, while well intentioned, do not have adequate resources to help keep their sheltered population safe and stable. We can try supplementing these shelters or we can design a new approach to public housing.

Having stable housing means you have a place to rest your head at night, protected from the environment. Being able to get adequate sleep is indispensable physical and mental wellbeing. Think about what kind of a cost reduction to our medical system to take the preventative measure of adequate sleep.

The Right to a Clean Environment and Health Planet:

We are all living on this spinning rock orbiting a giant ball of nuclear fusion. The rich and diverse environment our parents enjoyed is quickly collapsing. In spite of the many impactful efforts of environmentally minded people, we still face grave challenges. Pollution, including greenhouse gasses, need to be regulated, minimized, and mitigated.

Addressing our climate crises is a global effort. We have no time for war if we are to achieve peace for our country to more adequately coordinate in global efforts. There is much the United States can do to depressurize global conflict. We should take those steps to secure peace for us today so that we can have a chance at saving tomorrow for our children.

War has a particularly high carbon footprint. Not only does it take an enormous amount of carbon emissions to build a bomb, deliver it to the military base, and fly it over to where it is dropped. But there is the carbon emissions required to rebuild the destruction of the bomb.

Adapting our society to one that has mutual respect for the environment will require retraining for those in the fossil fuel industry. A just transition is one that provides help to those who seek to rejoin our economy in a meaningful way.

The Right to a Meaningful Endowment of Resources upon Birth:

Our constitution states that “all men are created equal”. In a fundamental way, this is true. But when we evaluate the conditions of each person at birth, we see that some are created with access to more resources than others. This isn't to say everyone should start out the same, but that the minimum someone starts out with should be more than zero.

Having an endowment of resources could be what is needed to start a business, buy a house, or otherwise build meaning for one's life.

The Right to Sound Financial Services:

The ability to make basic financial transactions is essential to function in today's society. Everyone needs to be able to receive money, save their money, and spend their money.

Credit Unions are often less exploitative than their Bank counterparts. Even still, there are too many Americans that do not have access to financial services they provide.

We can create a federal level institution that provides these financial services, or we can legislate the states to create their own.

The Right to an Equitable and Fair Justice System:

You shouldn't have to be a lawyer to be able to navigate the law. Many people cannot take recourse when wronged by a large corporation because they do not have the legal expertise available to do so. All the while some of these corporations have whole teams of legal experts whose whole job is to protect the interests of the corporation from litigation.

The Right to Cultural and Civic Involvement in Democratic Life:

At the end of the day, we are a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We should have a say in how our society works, and have an opportunity to express ourselves within it.

Culture is the underpins of the moral nature of our society. Do we have a culture that has mutual respect for all citizens? Do we have a culture that respects the dignity of human life? Do we have a culture that venerates responsibility along with freedom? A culture that honors each individual while promoting healthy communities. A culture that prizes building a safe, sustainable and joyous society?

Every citizen in our country should have democratic power to determine our culture and society. Financial hardships should not prevent someone from public service. The constitution says a lot by what it does not say in Article I. To be a United States Senator, you need to be at least 30 years old, at least 9 of those as a citizen, and live in the state you want to represent. It says nothing about how much money you have or how much land you own. Citizenship is the qualifier. This amendment would make that explicit.