TheSecond Bill of Rights orBill of Economic Rights was proposed byUnited States PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt during hisState of the Union Address on Tuesday, January 11, 1944.[1] In his address, Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come to recognise and should now implement a "secondbill of rights". Roosevelt argued that the "political rights" guaranteed by theConstitution and theBill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in thepursuit of happiness". His remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" to guarantee these specific rights:
These rights have come to be known aseconomic rights; although not to be enshrined within the constitution, the hope of advocating the policy was that it would be "encoded and guaranteed by federal law".[2] Roosevelt stated that having such rights would guarantee American security and that theUnited States' place in the world depended upon how far the rights had been carried into practice. This safety has been described as a state of physical welfare, as well as "economic security, social security, and moral security" by American legal scholarCass Sunstein.[3] Roosevelt pursued a legislative agenda to enact his second bill of rights by lending Executive Branch personnel to key Senate committees. This tactic, effectively a blending of powers, produced mixed results and generated a backlash from Congress which resulted in passage of theLegislative Reorganization Act of 1946. This Act provided funding for Congress to establish its own staffing for committees.[4]
In the runup to theSecond World War, the United States had suffered through theGreat Depression following theWall Street Crash of 1929. Roosevelt's election at the end of 1932 was based on a commitment to reform the economy and society through a "New Deal" program. The first indication of a commitment to government guarantees of social and economic rights came in anaddress to the Commonwealth Club on September 23, 1932, during his campaign. The speech was written withAdolf A. Berle, a professor ofcorporate law atColumbia University. A key passage read:
As I see it, the task of government in its relation to business is to assist the development of an economic declaration of rights, an economic constitutional order. This is the common task of statesman and business man. It is the minimum requirement of a more permanently safe order of things.
Throughout Roosevelt's presidency, he returned to the same theme continually over the course of the New Deal. Also in theAtlantic Charter, an international commitment was made as the Allies thought about how to "win the peace" following victory in the Second World War. The US' commitment to non-interventionism in World War II ending with the 1941Lend-Lease act, and laterPearl Harbor attacks, resulted in the mobilisation of the war state. The generous terms of the act, in conjunction with the economic growth of the US were key in allowing the US to establish new global order with the help ofAllied powers in the aftermath of war. This motivation to establish a new global order provided the infrastructure for the implementation of an international standard of human rights, seen with the Second Bill of Rights and theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights.Akira Iriye's proposition that the US desired to transform the post war Pacific after their own image is representative of the wider desire to raise global standards to that of the US, feeding into ideals ofAmerican Exceptionalism.[5] The effect of wider democratisation and social reform is discussed inFrancis Fukuyama'sThe End of History and the Last Man.[6]
During Roosevelt'sJanuary 11, 1944, message to theCongress on theState of the Union, he said the following:[7]
It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an Americanstandard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men."[8] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
- Theright to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
- The right toearn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
- The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
- The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom fromunfair competition and domination bymonopolies at home or abroad;
- Theright of every family to a decent home;
- Theright to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
- The right to adequate protection from the economic fears ofold age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
- Theright to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
Roosevelt presented theJanuary 11, 1944, State of the Union address to the public on radio as afireside chat from the White House:
Today I sent my Annual Message to the Congress, as required by the Constitution. It has been my custom to deliver these Annual Messages in person, and they have been broadcast to the Nation. I intended to follow this same custom this year. But like a great many other people, I have had the "flu", and although I am practically recovered, my doctor simply would not let me leave the White House to go up to the Capitol. Only a few of the newspapers of the United States can print the Message in full, and I am anxious that the American people be given an opportunity to hear what I have recommended to the Congress for this very fateful year in our history — and the reasons for those recommendations. Here is what I said ...[9]
He asked that newsreel cameras film the last portion of the address, concerning the Second Bill of Rights. This footage was believed lost until it was uncovered in 2008 in South Carolina byMichael Moore while researching the filmCapitalism: A Love Story.[10] The footage shows Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights address in its entirety as well as a shot of the eight rights printed on a sheet of paper.[11][12]
After Roosevelt's death in 1945, theFair Deal program ofPresident Harry Truman's administration extended and enlarged Roosevelt's New Deal vision. According to historian Alonzo Hamby, "The Fair Deal was a conscious effort to continue the purpose of the New Deal but not necessarily its methods. . . . Seeking to go beyond the New Deal while preserving its objectives, the Truman administration advocated a more sweeping and better-ordered reform agenda."[13]
FDR's third-term vice president,Henry Wallace, launched apresidential bid in 1948 with a new party. HisProgressive Party platform promoted the Economic Bill of Rights.[14][15]
In July 1960, at theDemocratic National Convention, the party nominatedJohn F. Kennedy for president andLyndon Johnson for vice president. In the platform, it endorsed the Economic Bill of Rights.[16]
From 1965 to 1969, theGreat Society program and the "war on poverty" ofPresident Lyndon Johnson's administration built on Roosevelt's ideas, greatly expanding the federal government's role in such areas as education, employment, healthcare, housing, and civil rights.
Civil rights activistsA. Philip Randolph andBayard Rustin in 1966 draftedA “Freedom Budget” for All Americans.[17]
Civil rights leaderMartin Luther King Jr., a champion of economic justice long before the historic1963 March on Washington,[18] lobbied for the economic rights bill in a 1968Look magazine essay, published after his assassination.[19]
In 2004, legal scholarCass Sunstein called for a revival of FDR's unfulfilled vision in his book,The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever.[20][21]
In fall 2009, Michael Moore'sCapitalism: A Love Story introduced the Second Bill of Rights to moviegoers and generated national, and even international, press.[22][23][24]
In his2020 presidential primary campaign, progressive Vermont Sen.Bernie Sanders promoted a 21st Century Bill of Rights.[25][26]
In 2022,Prof. Harvey J. Kaye andAlan Minsky ofProgressive Democrats of America (PDA) launched a campaign for a modern, expanded 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights.[27][28] At its 2022 convention, theMassachusetts Democratic Party endorsed the PDA proposal.[29][30]
In her2024 presidential primary campaign,Democratic Party candidateMarianne Williamson featured the 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights in her platform,[31] interviews and speeches.[32][33][34][35]
The Progressive Party holds that a just government must use its powers to promote an abundant life for its people. This is the basic idea of Franklin Roosevelt's Economic Bill of Rights. Heretofore every attempt to give effect to this principle has failed because Big Business dominates the key sectors of the economy. Antitrust laws and government regulation cannot break this domination. Therefore the people, through their democratically elected representatives, must take control of the main levers of the economic system.
this book begins with a recognition that by 1948, the guardians of the New Deal ethic had already lost. The Democratic Party had already compromised the ideals of the Four Freedoms and the Economic Bill of Rights. Despite the best efforts of Wallace and his most prominent allies, FDR's Democratic Party died when it rejected the man whom Eleanor Roosevelt described as "peculiarly fitted to carry on the ideals which were close to my husband's heart."
A new Democratic Administration will undertake to meet those needs. It will reaffirm the Economic Bill of Rights which Franklin Roosevelt wrote into our national conscience sixteen years ago. It will reaffirm these rights for all Americans of whatever race, place of residence, or station in life… The pledges contained in this Economic Bill of Rights point the way to a better life for every family in America.
1966 proposal drafted by the activists A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin: A "Freedom Budget" for All Americans… a revival of Roosevelt's economic bill of rights, outlining seven core objectives that covered most of the same terrain, with additional emphasis on reducing pollution, to be achieved within 10 years. By the end of his life, such a program had become a core priority for King — his last written work before his assassination in 1968 was the posthumously published "We Need an Economic Bill of Rights."
Memphis sanitation workers went on strike in 1968…told attendees at a March 1968 rally, "it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages … working on a full-time basis and a full-time job getting part-time income… The March on Washington sought equality before the law, but also an economic bill of rights for poor white, black and brown workers. He had constantly linked civil rights and labor and poor people's movements; as far back as 1957, he condemned "the tragic inequalities of an economic system which takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes."
you don't have to be a revolutionary to appreciate this film. Indeed, it can be seen as a social democratic treatise, with Franklin Roosevelt's proposed "second bill of rights" – an "economic bill of rights" that included a job with a living wage, housing, medical care, and education – as its reform program.
Now as we struggle to emerge from the worst economic decline since the Great Depression, we would benefit from returning to Roosevelt's principles and vision. Once more our economy is sapped by extreme inequality, with the wealthiest 1% controlling as much wealth as the bottom 90%, and capturing fully 2/3 of the income growth of the five years before the financial collapse. 50 million people go without health insurance, while health reform is under assault.
long-buried archival footage of Franklin D. Roosevelt detailing his planned but never enacted "Second Bill of Rights," calling for… the right to a job, a home, adequate health care, and an education.
Sanders offered a full-throated defense of democratic socialism… invoking the legacy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to call for a "21st Century Bill of Rights… in the 21st century, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, economic rights are human rights…
We must guarantee all people residing in the United States the right to the essentials of a good life regardless of their income, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or country of origin.
We need progressive candidates to embrace what Dr. Harvey J. Kaye, who's an expert on the New Deal and FDR, and Alan Minsky, the executive director of Progressive Democrats of America, are calling a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights.
Williamson has proposed an economic bill of rights for Americans, including the "right to a job that pays a living wage," "the right to good, affordable housing," and other guarantees.
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