Economic Justice

“We tend to treat changes in the economy as if they were like the weather—natural phenomena governed by forces beyond our control. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have chosen to live in a society with high unemployment and with income distribution that is becoming medieval. A tiny percentage of Americans owns most of the wealth. Meanwhile millions of willing and able people are without work. This did not just happen. We created this situation.”

—UUA President Rev. Peter Morales statement ‘Unemployment as a Spiritual Issue’

The Faithful Budget Campaign

The Unitarian Universalist Association is part of the interfaith Faithful Budget Campaign based on a covenant that “All our faith traditions place people who are impoverished and marginalized at the forefront of concern. The current fiscal debates—at their heart—are a struggle for the soul of our nation and its moral conscience. We grieve at the soaring gap between rich and poor; faith and fairness require that we preserve and strengthen vital lifelines for people who are struggling to overcome hardship and poverty in the U.S. and abroad. The faithful way forward to fiscal health calls for a focus on job creation, revenue increases, a shared commitment to the common good, and cuts in unnecessary military spending."

Action Alert! Calling for a Faithful Budget: Please Act Now and Contact Your Representative to Protect the Most Vulnerable Among Us! 

Faith Advocates for Jobs

Interfaith Worker Justice, a coalition partner of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), is organizing with the faith community to address the most damaging social crisis of our lifetimes: the crisis of unemployment. While there are some signs of a return to profitability for certain sectors of business, workers continue to face unemployment and underemployment at levels not seen since the Great Depression.

Faith Advocates for Jobs is a major new interfaith campaign initiated by Interfaith Worker Justice to address the severe suffering being endured by millions of unemployed workers. The campaign is organizing a nationwide network of congregations committed to supporting the unemployed and their families both spiritually and materially.

Will yours be one of those congregations? Learn more and sign up for a congregational toolkit, worship resources, timely information and more.

Read about First Unitarian Church of Portland, OR participation in the campaign.

Unitarian Universalists and Economic Justice

As people of faith who believe in the inherent worth of every person, Unitarian Universalists (UUs) strive for justice, equity and compassion in our relationships, and work for systemic change in our advocacy. Unitarian Universalists, following the prophetic leadership of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., recognize that racial and economic justice are inextricably linked. Dr. King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Most people remember the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom as the occasion where King gave his famous 'I Have a Dream' address. A key demand of the march was for a national minimum wage act that would give all Americans a decent standard of living. Certainly, Dr. King did not dream that the value of the minimum wage would be lower today than it was in 1963.

Today African-Americans and Latinos are suffering disastrously high unemployment rates in this current economic crisis. See Economic Policy Institute (EPI) October 2011 reports.

Interfaith Organizing

Many UU congregations are successfully pursuing their economic justice ministries through engagement in:

• Congregation-Based Community Organizing (CBCO)
• Socially Responsible Investing (SRI)
• Interfaith Worker Justice
• There is Power in Union: A UU Guide to Worker Justice (PDF, 18 pages)

UUA Policy

See Working for a Just Economic Community, 1997 General Resolution as well as other UUA statements on economic justice.

Related Issues

• Living Wage
• Health Care
• Criminal Justice Reform