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The "War on Poverty" was first introduced by Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. Legislation proposed by Johnson was designed in response to the poverty of over 35 million Americans that year and followed difficult economic conditions associated with a national poverty rate of around 25%. The War on Poverty speech led Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, a law that established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to administrate the local application of Federal funds targeted against poverty.* As a part of the Great Society, Johnson's view of a federally-directed application of resources to expand the government's role in social welfare programs from education to healthcare was a continuation of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal and Four Freedoms speech from the 1930s and 1940s. The concept of a war on poverty waned after the 1960s. Deregulation, growing criticism of the welfare state, and an ideological shift to reducing federal aid to impoverished people in the 1980s and 1990s culminated in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, in which Bill Clinton "ended welfare as we know it." Nonetheless, the legacy of the War on Poverty remains in the continued existence of such Federal Programs as Head Start and Job Corps.
Background Michael Harrington's book The Other America, 1962, is sometimes credited with being a catalyst in this moment. Major initiatives The Office of Economic Opportunity was the agency responsible for administering most of the War on Poverty programs created during United States President Lyndon B. Johnson's Administration, including VISTA, Job Corps, Head Start (though that program was later transferred to the Department of Health Education and Welfare), Legal Services and the Community Action Program. The OEO was established in 1964 and quickly became a target of both left-wing and right-wing critics of the War on Poverty. The OEO launched Project Head Start as an eight-week summer program in 1965. The project was designed to help end poverty by providing preschool children from low-income families with a program that would meet emotional, social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs. Head Start was then transferred to the Office of Child Development in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (later the Department of Health and Human Services) by the Nixon Administration in 1969. The Job Corps trains disadvantaged and at-risk youth and has provided more than 2 million disadvantaged young people with the integrated academic, vocational, and social skills training they need to gain independence and get quality, long-term jobs or further their education. Job Corps continues to help 70,000 youths annually at 122 Job Corps centers throughout the country. Besides vocational training, many Job Corps also offers GED programs as well as high school diplomas and programs to get students into college. Past directors of the OEO included Sargent Shriver, Bertrand Harding, and Donald Rumsfeld. Criticisms President Johnson's 'War on Poverty' speech was delivered at a time of recovery (the poverty level had fallen from 22.4% in 1959 to 19% in 1964 when the War on Poverty was announced) and it was viewed by critics as an effort to get the United States Congress to authorize social welfare programs. Many economists such as Milton Friedman have argued that Johnson's policies actually had a negative impact on the economy due to their interventionist nature. Economists such as these recommend that the best way to fight poverty is not through government welfare but through the free market. Results and Legacy In the decade following the 1964 introduction of the war on poverty, poverty rates in the US dropped to 11.1% and has remained between 11 and 15% ever since. Since 1973 poverty has remained well below the historical US averages in the range of 20-25% *. Poverty among Americans between ages 18-64 has fallen only marginally since 1966, from 10.5% then to 10.1% today. Poverty has significantly fallen among Americans under 18 years old from 23% in 1964 to 16.3% today. The most dramatic decrease in poverty was among Americans over 65, which fell from 28.5% in 1966 to 10.1% today. In 2004, more than 35.9 million, or 12% of Americans including 12.1 million children, were considered to be living in poverty with an average growth of almost 1 million per year. The OEO was dismantled by President Richard Nixon in 1973, though many of the agency's programs were transferred to other government agencies. According to the Readers' Companion to U.S. Women's History, "Many observers point out that the War on Poverty's attention to Black America created the grounds for the backlash that began in the 1970s. The perception by the white middle class that it was footing the bill for ever-increasing services to the poor led to diminished support for welfare state programs, especially those that targeted specific groups and neighborhoods. Many whites viewed Great Society programs as supporting the economic and social needs of low-income urban minorities; they lost sympathy, especially as the economy declined during the 1970s."* Historical Notes The U.S. government continues to use the antiquated Orshansky measure of the poverty line, a measure which is only adjusted for inflation, and not adjusted for the actual cost of living against median income. In the 1960s the average cost of living was 30% of individual income, though in recent years the cost of living averages to 50% of household income. Because of this skew in measuring the poverty line some believe that the current U.S. Census statistics published could actually be closer to 50 million Americans. See also | ||||||||
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