Poverty and inequality rates in the United States are already alarming and are poised to worsen under President Donald Trump, threatening the nation's democracy, a top United Nations official said on Friday.
More than 1 in 8 Americans live in poverty, nearly half of those live in "deep poverty" and most have no way of escaping their plight, said Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
The U.N. official's scathing outlook, which criticized U.S. politics, policies and attitudes, came after he recently toured the country from homeless encampments in California to small towns in the South and the hurricane-devastated island of Puerto Rico.