Paul Briggs:
LBJ’s War on Poverty recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary. The argument over poverty is one which has raged for centuries and continues today. No one argues against helping people out of poverty; the argument rages over how to help. There are ideological differences in the approach which different people support. No one, despite the rhetoric, is for throwing people out into the streets or over a cliff.
The War on Poverty has not changed much since its inception 50 years ago. Poverty reduction approaches have relied on the Government to fund them. More accurately, the employed support those in poverty through a series of taxes, credits and other distributive measures. In the past, as today, churches and other local charities do their best to help out those in need.
Further, poverty rates have not changed since the initial inception of the War on Poverty. There was a large drop in the poverty rate between 1961 and 1969. But, ever since then, the rates have changed with employment and the overall economic atmosphere of the country.
Can it truly be proven that the fall of poverty was due to “The War on Poverty?” After all, what else happened at this same time? The Sixties were made up of two huge movements, racial equality and the rise of feminism. Both of these movements, at the time, demanded equality in the workplace, voter booth, school, etc. This lead to a rapid infusion of employees. They had previously been discouraged from working to support their families at the fullest potential.
The economic milieu in which the War on Poverty arose is noteworthy. As of 1965, the number of Americans living below the official poverty line had been declining continuously since the beginning of the decade and was only about half of what it had been fifteen years earlier.
Between 1950 and 1965, the proportion of people whose earnings put them below the poverty level, had decreased by more than 30%. The black poverty rate had been cut nearly in half between 1940 and 1960. In various skilled trades during the period of 1936-59, the incomes of blacks relative to whites had more than doubled. Further, the representation of blacks in professional and other high-level occupations grew more quickly during the five years preceding the launch of the War on Poverty than during the five years thereafter. (HOW THE WELFARE STATE HAS DEVASTATED AFRICAN AMERICANS)
In the 1960′s, black people accounted for10.5% of the United States population. It is also noted, at this time they migrated north for better jobs and to escape racial violence in the South.
Also noted, is the differences in cost of living. Notice the figure on the left, where most of the poverty is concentrated in the South. Cost of living in these areas is substantially lower than in other part of the United States. It takes a lower income to survive and put food on the table in these areas. If it costs less to live, it is highly likely that incomes would be lower, and therefore be lumped in as below the poverty line
Related: That’s rich: Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record
Democrats voted for hope and change. The hope was clearly misplaced as Obama’s change is more joblessness and poverty. Meanwhile, “Boomtown” Washington DC is becoming the filthy rich crony capitalism Mecca and we have more congressional millionaires than ever before:
Report: Majority in Congress Millionaires for First Time in History
I don’t know how you can say there have been no improvements.
Democrats have a hard lock on the Senate and the Presidency. Democrats own the news media. Democrats own the colleges and universities. Democrats own the Teacher Unions, and thus control the primary and secondary non-education.
The vast dumbing down of the culture, the rise of the no-information and low-information voter, the ascendancy of tasteless and vulgar culture, have brought what was once a civilization which had some decent culture into a fetid swamp of unapprochable horror. Listened to any rap “music” recently?
Democrats (and the RINOs who love them) have produced the largest bureaucratic state in history, which state is accountable to no one.
So don’t tell me there have been no improvements.
Any more improvements and we will be level with Zimbabwe.
@mathman:
Definition of IMPROVEMENT: 1: the act or process of improving 2 a : the state of being improved; especially : enhanced value or excellence b : an instance of such improvement : something that enhances value or excellence
The “Progressives” have brought us negative progression which is another oxymoronic way of putting it. (Just as the Federalists pushed for the opposite of federalism, and the anti-federalists argued in favor of federalism). Perhaps it would have been preferential if the author had termed it: negative change, regression or deterioration.