In this dark year, with 176,600 Americans lost to the coronavirus and 5.6 million infected, that grim theme of structural inequality is more apt for the United States than ever.
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Special federal money for millions of unemployed people has lapsed and a moratorium on rental evictions is expiring. People who never thought they would need food charity have found themselves accepting it.
On Friday, former Vice-President Joe Biden addressed the situation the country finds itself in with a steely, urgent delivery and short, blunt sentences as he accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for the November presidential election.
He did not mention his opponent, President Donald Trump, by name.
"I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness. It's time for us, for we, the people, to come together. And make no mistake. United we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America. We'll choose hope over fear. Facts over fiction. Fairness over privilege."
It was forceful rhetoric stripped of appealing flourishes - poetry and prose hammered together.
Biden will be hoping his unvarnished pitch will peel away enough 2016 Trump voters to restore the blue wall in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
It was a world away from the optimistic notes of Biden's one-time boss President Barack Obama on the campaign trail in 2008.
This was the metaphorical promise of a long trudge through winter to an unknown place.
"No generation ever knows what history will ask of it. All we can ever know is whether we'll be ready when that moment arrives. And now history has delivered us to one of the most difficult moments America has ever faced. Four historic crises. All at the same time."
It was also the speech of someone with nothing left to prove and one shot to do what he can.
Biden is 77 with decades in politics behind him. He has been marked with the grief of having lost his first wife and two children.
The convention's key argument was that he was the man for this moment: Biden was empathetic and experienced while Trump was not. The Democrat, but not the Republican, was prepared to put in the work battling the pandemic, the economic crisis, calls for racial justice and climate change.
The Democrats tried hard to suggest that the culture of a Biden administration would be one of hard work in rolled-up sleeves.
Trump's unconventional approach to the presidency has throughout the pandemic gifted Biden the space to virtually fill the expected role of a president in a crisis.
That's to provide leadership, direction, and reassurance; say the right things and look the part. Biden has presented himself as the socially-distanced president-in-waiting.
Biden's campaign has had a consistent theory of the case for his presidential bid.
Back in the primary season, the Biden strategy was that the contest was about Trump's character and performance, and that people wanted a return to normality, well before the onslaught of Covid-19.
Throughout the year there were younger and more exciting candidates, but the majority of Democrats decided Biden was the most electable.
At the convention former rival Andrew Yang came up with the interesting idea that "the magic of Joe Biden is that everything he does becomes the new reasonable. If he comes with an ambitious new plan to address climate change, all of a sudden everyone is going to follow his lead."
The convention showed the party relying mostly on an emotional connection rather than policy detail. Biden, former President Bill Clinton and senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders mentioned the economy. Was that enough?
Trump's main advantage has continued to be that people credited the President with the country's strong economic performance.
Polls show that is still a hard nut for Biden to crack. A CNN poll gave Trump an eight-point lead on who was better to handle the economy.
In March and April, the US lost more than 22 million jobs. Since then about nine million jobs have been recovered. Last week another million people applied for state unemployment help, NPR reports.
According to RealClearPolitics.com averages, in the last week of February about 55 per cent of voters believed the US was on the wrong track. That is 70 per cent now. Trump's job approval rating has fallen by 6.2 per cent over that time.
This week the Republicans get to post their reply with their own national convention.
Trump has been trying to define Biden as a front for a socialist agenda pushed by Sanders and his allies. He will target the Democratic ticket over its spending plans, and fears the situation will worsen on taxes, immigration, and crime.
Deposing an incumbent is a rare event in US elections and is a challenge not to be underestimated.
The Electoral College elevates the influence of the white voters without university-level education in Rust Belt states who pushed Trump over the line in 2016.
Polls show Biden is doing better with higher-educated whites than Hillary Clinton in 2016 but is polling about the same with black voters and Hispanics - core Democratic groups.
Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report estimates that in the 10 closest battleground states in 2016, whites without a college degree made up 49 per cent of the electorate.
A further 29 per cent were higher educated whites and 22 per cent were non-white. That compares to 42 per cent, 30 per cent and 28 per cent for the rest of the US.
Poll averages and prediction forecasts are more useful measures of the race than individual polls.
The question will be whether any of the poll data changes after the convention and the selection of Senator Kamala Harris as Biden's running mate.
The Democrats will hope the convention has stirred more enthusiasm among their voters to vote for Biden rather than mainly against Trump.
The pandemic and its economic fallout have taken a heavy toll in the US, but they make the election terrain uncertain with two and a half months to go. The US outbreak could be better or worse by late October.
There are already major questions over election turnout with Covid-19 at high levels and Trump's attempts to sow doubt about voting by mail.
Potentially, late-breaking positive news on jobs or a vaccine could help the President. Trump has made the search for an effective vaccine the centre of his coronavirus strategy.
Will the electorate see Biden as a credible and welcome alternative to Trump? Or does the sheer weight of multiple crises this year make the electorate sceptical that a change at the top will make any difference?
For the Democrats to win, enough voters will need to feel hope as well as anger in these difficult times.
