Human Rights Record of the United States in 2014 State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China
The income inequality has been continuously growing. Over the past decade, the incomes of the richest Americans have grown by 86 percent, while the incomes of everyone else have grown at just a little over six percent, according to media report (www.aljazeera.com, January 8, 2014). A Pew Research Center study showed that the percentage of people who classified themselves as middle class has shrunk to 44 percent in 2014 from 53 percent in 2008. At the same time, the study showed, those who classified themselves as lower- or lower-middle class has risen to 40 percent in 2014 vs. 25 percent in 2008 (www.usatoday.com, September 25, 2014). In 2013, the difference in income between the country's rich and poor was the highest in almost 80 years (www.washingtonpost.com, September 2, 2014). In 2014, 65 percent of all Americans believed inequality was growing (www.pewtrusts.org, June 11, 2014).
The health care system was not able to widely protect citizens' right of health. According to Commonwealth Fund's latest findings, the U.S. health care system has the least efficient, least fair and worst health outcomes among the 11 peer nations surveyed. Americans have the highest death rate, the highest infant death rate and worst health at age 60. Yet Americans pay more than double what people in these other nations pay (edition.cnn.com, June 24, 2014).
Statistics revealed that every year, about 42.5 million American adults (or 18.2 percent of the total adult population in the U.S.) suffer from some mental illness, enduring conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia (www.newsweek.com, February 28, 2014). About 3.7 million Americans with serious mental illness, psychological distress or a substance abuse disorder are not covered by health insurance (www.pewtrusts.org, April 8, 2014). There's a suicide in the U.S. every 13 minutes. The nearly 40,000 American lives lost each year make suicide the second-leading killer for those aged 15-34 (The USA Today, October 10, 2014). Despite of the insufficient health care, since the beginning of 2010, 43 rural hospitals have closed, each serving about 10,000 people, who are the most vulnerable in the society (The USA Today, November 14, 2014).
The right to education of average people was not effectively protected. A study by the New America Foundation found that 69 percent of private colleges asked students whose families earned $30,000 or less to turn over half that income for tuition in 2012. College access opportunities were limited only to those who are rich enough to afford it due to high tuition fees (www.businessweek.com, September 18, 2014). Statistics showed that currently 29 percent of the young Americans have less education than their parents. Across the O.E.C.D, an average of 70 percent of three-year-olds are enrolled in education programs, while in the U.S., it's 38 percent (cn.nytimes.com, October 29, 2014).
IV. On Racial Discrimination
Racial discrimination has been a chronic problem in the U.S. human rights record. Facing discrimination in employment and payment, the ethnic minorities are trapped in graver poverty. In 2014, multiple cases of arbitrary police killing of African-Americans have sparked huge waves of protests, casting doubts on the racial "equality" in the U.S. and giving rise to racial hatred factors.
Racial bias in law enforcement and judicial system is very distinct. Compared with other ethnic groups, African-Americans are more likely to become victims of police shooting. Police killings of African-Americans during law enforcement have practically become "normal" in the U.S. According to an analysis of federally collected data, young black males in recent years were at a far greater risk of being shot dead by police than their white counterparts -- 21 times greater. The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that African-Americans, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police (www.propublica.org, October 10, 2014). Victims of the high-profile deaths caused by police enforcement in 2014 were all African-Americans. The above-mentioned Ferguson case exposed the feature, gravity and complexity of human rights problems in the U.S. caused by the country's institutional racial discrimination, highlighting the racial discrimination problem in the law enforcement and judicial system. The protests staged around the U.S. were directed against violent law enforcement and injustice, as well as the underlying problem of racial discrimination. When commenting on the cases in Ferguson and other places, a former senior American official said the U.S. criminal justice system was "out of balance" (www.washingtonpost.com, December 4, 2014). Amid sweeping protests against judicial injustice in relevant case, another fatal shooting of an African-American man Rumain Brisbon by a white police officer took place in Phoenix, Arizona. "It gives the impression that it's open season for killing black men," some comments said (www.usatoday.com, December 4, 2014).