Enshrine an Economic Bill of Rights

In 2024, 12.9 percent of Americans lived below the Supplemental Poverty Measure threshold (Census Bureau, P60-287). 8.2 percent of the population, approximately 27 million people, went without health insurance for some or all of the year (Census Bureau, P60-288). The proposal adds a constitutional amendment that recognizes rights to employment, fair wages, housing, healthcare, education, and social security, drawn from the eight rights enumerated in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1944 State of the Union address. The amendment is paired with implementing statutes that tie each right to an existing federal program at the time of ratification.

Current constitutional status

No provision of the federal Constitution currently recognizes a right to housing, healthcare, education, employment, or income support. The Supreme Court held in Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56 (1972), that there is no fundamental right to housing under the Constitution. In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973), the Court held that there is no fundamental right to education. In Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980), the Court held that there is no constitutional right to government-funded medical care. Federal statutes provide programs — Medicaid, SNAP, housing vouchers, unemployment insurance, Pell Grants — but each can be modified or repealed by ordinary legislation, including changes to eligibility rules, funding levels, and work requirements.

The United States is among fewer than ten U.N. member states that have not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The U.S. signed the treaty in 1979 and has not submitted it to the Senate for advice and consent. As of 2025, 173 states are parties to the Covenant.

The amendment

The amendment would add a new article to the Constitution recognizing the rights enumerated by President Roosevelt in the 1944 State of the Union address, with textual scope adapted to current statute and case law. The amendment would be paired with implementing statutes that tie each right to an existing federal program at the time of ratification, rather than leaving each right’s scope to be defined through litigation.

The amendment would:

• Recognize a right to employment in the labor market or in a federally administered job-of-last-resort program, with hours and wages sufficient to meet the supplemental poverty threshold for a family of four
• Recognize a right to a wage adequate for food, clothing, shelter, and basic recreation, indexed to a federally calculated cost-of-living standard
• Recognize a right to safe, habitable, and affordable housing, defined by reference to existing Section 8 housing-quality standards and a 30 percent income-share affordability ceiling
• Recognize a right to comprehensive medical care, including reproductive, dental, vision, and mental health services
• Recognize a right to a complete education from preschool through the first credential after secondary school (associate degree, bachelor’s degree, or vocational certificate)
• Recognize a right to social security in old age, in unemployment, in disability, and during periods caring for dependents
• Provide that the rights are progressively realized through reasonable measures within available resources, modeled on Section 26(2) of the Constitution of South Africa
• Authorize Congress to enforce the article by appropriate legislation, mirroring the enforcement clauses of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments

The companion implementing statutes would establish a federal job guarantee through the Department of Labor and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act infrastructure, index the federal minimum wage to the supplemental poverty threshold, convert federal housing programs into an entitlement, enact single-payer healthcare under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act, make public higher education tuition-free through expansion of the Pell Grant and federal direct loan program, and raise Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and SSI benefits to meet the supplemental poverty threshold.

Precedent

The proposal traces directly to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s State of the Union address of January 11, 1944, in which he transmitted the eight rights to Congress and called for their enactment as part of postwar reconstruction. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, Pub. L. 78-346 (the G.I. Bill), implemented portions of the framework — education, housing access through VA loans, and unemployment compensation — for returning veterans. The Employment Act of 1946, Pub. L. 79-304, declared the federal responsibility to promote “maximum employment, production, and purchasing power,” but did not guarantee the right Roosevelt had proposed.

Several other jurisdictions recognize comparable rights at the constitutional level. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996), Sections 26 and 27, recognizes rights to housing, healthcare, food, water, and social security, subject to progressive realization within available resources. The Constitutional Court of South Africa enforced these provisions in Government of the Republic of South Africa v. Grootboom (2000) and Minister of Health v. Treatment Action Campaign (2002). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Articles 22 through 26, enumerates an essentially identical set of rights. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) treats them as binding obligations on ratifying states. State-level precedent includes Article II, Section 3 of the Montana Constitution (1972), which recognizes a right to “pursuing life’s basic necessities,” and Article VII, Section 1 of the Alaska Constitution, which mandates legislative establishment and maintenance of a system of public schools.

First 100 days

Day one. The president transmits the proposed amendment to Congress with an Office of Legal Counsel analysis of textual scope, justiciability, and the relationship between progressive realization and existing federal entitlement structures. The Domestic Policy Council releases a unified report identifying which existing federal programs implement each of the eight rights and where statutory gaps exist.

Day thirty. Congress holds joint House Judiciary and Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the proposed amendment, paired with House Education and Workforce, Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Financial Services Committee hearings on each of the implementing statutes. The Department of State submits the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to the Senate for advice and consent.

Day ninety. Both houses of Congress pass a joint resolution proposing the amendment by the required two-thirds majority and send it to the states under Article V. The implementing statutes — federal job guarantee, indexed minimum wage, housing entitlement conversion, single-payer Medicare expansion, free public higher education, and a strengthened social-insurance floor — are introduced as separate bills with paired hearings scheduled.

Effect of the amendment

The amendment recognizes employment, wage adequacy, housing, healthcare, education, and social security as constitutionally protected rights subject to progressive realization within available resources. The implementing statutes tie each right to an existing federal program at the time of ratification. The combined effect is that the eight rights would no longer be statutory entitlements modifiable by ordinary legislation. They would instead be constitutional protections enforceable by Congress under the amendment’s enforcement clause.