In common political conversation, economics and human rights can be pitted against one another. Whether we are talking about the environment, tax policy, public health, or human service provision, we often talk about the growth of the economy as a tradeoff against human rights considerations, such as the rights to health, safety, and education.
In policy after policy area, however, we find that economics and human rights are not truly in tension. As a matter of fact, when we look closer at policy, we find you can often improve human rights by growing the economy or vice-versa.
In the area of long-term care, we see the improvements made in deinstitutionalization over the past decade improving both the fiscal picture for governments as it improves the rights and freedoms for elderly residents. Providing more support for elderly people to age in their homes is cheaper, thus freeing up economic resources for other uses at the same time that it allows for people to live lives that are more free and self-directed.
We’ve seen a similar dynamic play out in tax and transfer policy. A cost-benefit analysis conducted by Scioto Analysis shows that the earned income tax credit, the most important anti-poverty program in the United States outside of Social Security, both reduces poverty and grows the economy.
Proper considerations of the true economic costs of carbon emissions shows that environmental policy is also punctuated by a positive relationship between human rights and economic growth. Understanding that pollution is a negative externality that levies costs on people not involved in the supply or purchase of energy shows that pollution is a drag on the economy. Thus, measures to reduce pollution can both secure the rights of people who are impacted by pollution and can help grow the economy.
One more example is that of high-quality child care. Child care subsidies are often seen as a subsidy for low-income families to work or for children from low-income families to receive care. High-quality child care and early childhood education also has a strong economic benefit it achieves by helping train tomorrow’s workforce, outfitting children with fundamental socio-emotional skills that increase earnings and educational attainment.
Income is a fundamental indicator in human development. The Human Development Index uses income along with education and health as a cornerstone of understanding how well countries are securing the rights of their citizens. Income is a fundamental tool families use to achieve the goals they wish to achieve.
While it is easy to demonize economics and its influence on the public policy process, at its foundation economics is about getting people more of what they want. And what do families want? They want to be healthy, educated, productive, comfortable, and to contribute. Giving people the resources they need to do so allows them to secure their rights.
This is the logic behind the historic 2020-2021 expansions of the child tax credit. When a child grows up in poverty, it is harder for her to get access to healthy foods, to secure opportunities for education, to have adequate housing, and to access the plethora of other resources a family can get access to with more income. Thus, transfers that increase the resources of low-income families reduce poverty in the short-term while improving the long-term prospects of their children to contribute to the broader economy.
Economics is not in essential tension with the concept of human rights. Ultimately, economics is the study of how we can get more benefit out of the resources we have. What better tool is there for the sincere activist for human rights?