Federal judge says United States should add ‘right to earn a living’ to Constitution

U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho wrote in an opinion this week that the United States Supreme Court should add the fundamental right to earn a living to the US Constitution.

The call to amend the Constitution came as Ho rejected a lawsuit brought against the City of Columbus, Mississippi, over a state-mandated COVID-19 closure at the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

The judge argued that hearing the case would be only part of the battle, saying, “If we’re going to recognize various unenumerated rights as fundamental, why not the right to earn a living?”

Ho argued that the right to work is “deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition” and yet has been left out of the enumerated rights granted to all US citizens.

Ho says the current view of fundamental rights as they relate to earning a living protects only a “broad swath of non-economic human activities, while leaving economic activities out in the cold.” 

The Trump-appointed conservative judge issued the ruling after another federal judge, Edith Jones, wrote in an earlier decision that the forced seven-week closure of Golden Glow Tanning Salon, Inc., had denied the business owners of their fundamental right to work, but since the fundamental right to earn a living is not currently included in the US Constitution, SCOTUS should move to formally recognize the right.