With the 2016 Presidential election approaching rapidly, candidates are beginning to differentiate themselves from the competition by advocating for unique platforms. While some candidates have built a large portion of their campaign around illegal immigration, one candidate has made it clear that he will focus on an issue here at home. Bernie Sanders has emerged as the champion for reducing poverty here in the United States.

Sanders uses the increasing disparity between the wealth classes in America to illustrate his point on the problem of American poverty. Continuing to hammer his point home, Sanders then puts the blame on Wall Street’s influence over economic poverty, unfairly favoring those with more income. Sanders is directly quoted as saying, “There are a lot of great public servants out there, great economists who for years have been standing up for the middle class and the working families of this country, who know that it is an international embarrassment that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth.” Sanders makes a bold claim with this statement, but one that is shockingly valid.

Sanders’ campaign website lists some alarming figures about overall U.S. poverty as well as child poverty on an international scale. According to the site, 46.5 million Americans live below the poverty line making that figure the largest in U.S. history. In addition to this number, Sanders’ website cites a 21.8 percent child poverty rate, the “highest of any major country on earth.” It is important to distinguish here that by “major country,” he is referring to all countries part of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED).

In March of 2014 Sanders organized a subcommittee to examine in depth the differences in life expectancy across the United Sates as a direct result of varying poverty levels. Some of the findings reported that almost as many people die from poverty as from lung cancer. Life expectancy was also shown to have decreased over the past 20 years in 313 U.S. counties, and the United States has 6 million more people in poverty today than it did in 2004.

Poverty is as crucial an issue as any from presidential hopefuls this elections. Senator Bernie Sanders has made it one of his top campaign priorities to reduce this number drastically if elected, by working vigorously to improve the system of the American economy and reduce the vast gap between wealth classes in America.

– Diego Catala

Sources: PolitiFact, Senate
Photo: Bernie Sanders