COVID-19 (sign the petition)

Sign on to the Poor People's Campaign's demands in response to COVID-19. 

Dear MoveOn member,

We're Reverend Dr. William Barber II and Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis, the co-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. 

So much of this country is in economic free fall in response to COVID-19, while many Americans were already at rock bottom before the virus hit. 

We need to ensure that the resources going to address this pandemic meet our needs for universal health care, living wages and work protections, and adequate income and anti-poverty programs—and do not just go to cover the rich. Even the current legislation still isn't enough to address the extent of this crisis. 

We need your voice: Sign the petition calling on Congress for a moral response to COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us into an unprecedented national emergency. This emergency, however, results from a deeper and much longer-term crisis—that of poverty and inequality and of a society that ignores the needs of 140 million people who are poor or who are a $400 emergency away from being poor.

These millions of people are in dire need of critical attention immediately. We call on you to fulfill your moral and constitutional responsibilities—expand the COVID-19 emergency provisions to care for us all and enact our Moral Agenda immediately.

This pandemic will hit poor and impacted people hardest—those of us who don't have access to health care, housing, water, decent wages, legal status, stable work, or child care. Folks who are still working on the frontlines to provide health care and other needs will be severely impacted, too. And this moment is awakening all of us to the immoral reality that has long been buried under the surface: before COVID-19, nearly 700 people died every day because of poverty and inequality.

We cannot return to normal. Addressing the depth of the crises that have been revealed in this pandemic means enacting universal health care, expanding social welfare programs, ensuring access to water and sanitation, providing cash assistance to poor and low-income families, ensuring good jobs and living wages, establishing an annual income, and protecting our democracy.

It means ensuring that our abundant national resources are used for the general welfare, instead of wars, walls, and the wealthy—not just in times of crisis but at all times.

Sign on to the Poor People's Campaign's demands in response to COVID-19.

Forward together, 

 

–Rev. Dr. William Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign

P.S. Last Thursday, we joined MoveOn for a Facebook Live to talk about the connection between poverty and this pandemic, and what a moral response to COVID-19 must look like. You can watch that conversation here.

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