Civics Lesson 101: The War on Poverty

[Zander]

You forgot..... Stop paying the rent, stop heating your home, stop getting sick, stop dreaming about educating your kids

Sorry Leftwinger - Actions have consequences. If you spend your life smoking cigarettes, getting high, drinking alcohol, and buying lottery tickets - you're life may not be so great. If you can't afford to pay your bills - Move in with family or friends, share expenses with other people that make bad decisions like you, eat less food. The best education you can give your kids is by example. Stop being a loser.

Sorry Zander...but it is the same old blame the victim mentality of the conservative right. "If only they hadn't blown their money...they would be rich like you and I"

I hear the same old stories about how poor people scam the system and drive Escalades while collecting food stamps. The same stories of "I was on line at the grocery store and they were buying Filet Mignon with food stamps"

The poor people I have met in my life worked hard. They drove 15 year old pickup trucks, had hand me down furniture and their kids wore hand me down clothes. If the car broke down and they needed $600 to repair it...they did without. If they had to pay a $1000 doctor bill...they did without. Electricity got cut off and bills did not get paid.

Not everyone in this world gets dealt a fair hand. Some get everything handed to them and some get nothing but scraps.

These people are not the losers that you claim. They work hard and have little to show for it. You can gloat and say they deserve it. But sometimes there is not an open path for success. In every society, some flourish and some suffer. A great society takes care of all its citizens

What an emotional load of crap !! A great society is a leftist fantasy. Great individuals are what we need.

The people you describe are economic losers (they may be kind, wonderful, loving people) because they never updated their skills and they fail to live below their means. They never put anything away for a rainy day - but they have all the toys and trapping a consumer could ask for!! Now it's raining and they want a handout ?? Too bad. You'll take the pittance that the government gives you and be happy you got anything. Move in with your friends or relatives. Sell your TV, I-pad, I-pod, Lap top, cell phone, your WII and your play station. Cancel the cable and internet. Maybe someday you'll understand that the only person responsible, for your life is YOU. It isn't "blame" leftwingnut - it is REALITY. The Government and "society" is not your mommy and daddy. Grow up and deal with it, or take the crumbs that "society" gives you.

 

[Foxfyre]

Again referring to the graph in the OP, the poverty rate was plummeting BEFORE the so-called 'War on Poverty' and from that point on has been up and down but fairly level on average after expenditures exceeding $10 trillion on poverty programs since LBJ pushed Congress to allocate $1 billion for his anti-poverty initiative 47 years ago.

Why are you assuming that a major push toward a federal anti-poverty policy began in 1964 with the War on Poverty? Your graph shows the decline beginning in or after 1961. Coincidentally, perhaps, that's the year a series of significant anti-poverty measures (though not billed as such, politically) began under the New Frontier. Some examples:

• The Kennedy Administration pushed an economic stimulus program through congress in an effort to kick-start the American economy following an economic downturn. On February 2, 1961, Kennedy sent a comprehensive Economic Message to Congress which had been in preparation for several weeks. The legislative proposals put forward in this message included[9]:
  
  (1.) The addition of a temporary thirteen-week supplement to jobless benefits,
  
  (2.) The extension of aid to the children of unemployed workers,
  
  (3.) The redevelopment of distressed areas,
  
  (4.) An increase in Social Security payments and the encouragement of earlier retirement,
  
  (5.) An increase in the minimum wage and an extension in coverage,
  
  (6.) The provision of emergency relief to feed grain farmers, and
  
  (7.) The financing of a comprehensive home-building and slum clearance program[10].
  
  The following month, the first of these seven measures became law, and the remaining six measures had been signed by the end of June. Altogether, the economic stimulus program provided an estimated 420,000 construction jobs under a new Housing Act, $175 million in higher wages for those below the new minimum, over $400 million in aid to over 1,000 distressed counties, over $200 million in extra welfare payments to 750,000 children and their parents, and nearly $800 million in extended unemployment benefits for nearly three million unemployed Americans
• Amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1961 greatly expanded the FLSA's scope in the retail trade sector and increased the minimum wage for previously covered workers to $1.15 an hour effective September 1961 and to $1.25 an hour in September 1963. The minimum for workers newly subject to the Act was set at $1.00 an hour effective September 1961, $1.15 an hour in September 1964, and $1.25 an hour in September 1965. Retail and service establishments were allowed to employ full-time students at wages of no more than 15 percent below the minimum with proper certification from the Department of Labor. The amendments extended coverage to employees of retail trade enterprises with sales exceeding $1 million annually, although individual establishments within those covered enterprises were exempt if their annual sales fell below $250,000. The concept of enterprise coverage was introduced by the 1961 amendments. Those amendments extended coverage in the retail trade industry from an established 250,000 workers to 2.2 million. [...]
• An Executive Order was issued (1962) which provided federal employees with collective bargaining rights[19].
• The Federal Salary Reform Act (1962) established the principle of “maintaining federal white-collar wages at a level with those paid to employees performing similar jobs in private enterprise [...]
• Unemployment and welfare benefits were expanded[28].
• In 1961, Social Security benefits were increased by 20% and provision for early retirement was introduced, enabling workers to retire at the age of sixty-two while receiving partial benefits[29].
• The Social Security Amendments of 1961 permitted male workers to elect early retirement age 62, increased minimum benefits, liberalized the benefit payments to aged widow, widower, or surviving dependent parent, and also liberalized eligibility requirements and the retirement test[30].
• The 1962 amendments to the Social Security Act authorized the federal government to reimburse states for the provision of social services[31].
• The School Lunch Act was amended for authority to begin providing free meals in poverty-stricken areas[32].
• A pilot food stamp program was launched (1961), covering six areas in the United States. In 1962, the program was extended to eighteen areas, feeding 240,000 people[33].
• Various school lunch and school milk programs were extended, “enabling 700,000 more children to enjoy a hot school lunch and eighty-five thousand more schools, child care centers, and camps to receive fresh milk”[34].
• ADC was extended to whole families (1961)[35].
• Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) replaced the Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) program, as coverage was extended to adults caring for dependent children[36].
• A major revision of the public welfare laws was carried out, with a $300 million modernisation which emphasised rehabilitation instead of relief”[37].
• A temporary antirecession supplement to unemployment compensation was introduced[38].
• Food distribution to needy Americans was increased[39]. In January 1961, the first executive order issued by Kennedy mandated that the Department of Agriculture increase the quantity and variety of foods donated for needy households. This executive order represented a shift in the Commodity Distribution Programs’ primary purpose, from surplus disposal to that of providing nutritious foods to low-income households[40].
• Social Security benefits were extended to an additional five million Americans[41].
• The Self-Employed Individuals Tax Retirement Act (1962) provided self-employed people with a tax postponement for income set aside in qualified pension plans[42].
• The Public Welfare Amendments of 1962 provided for greater Federal sharing in the cost of rehabilitative services to applicants, recipients, and persons likely to become applicants for public assistance. It increased the Federal share in the cost of public assistance payments, and permitted the States to combine the various categories into one category. The amendments also made permanent the 1961 amendment which extended aid to dependent children to cover children removed from unsuitable homes[43].
• Federal funds were made available for the payment of foster care costs for AFDC-eligible children who had come into state custody[44].
• An act was approved (1963) which extended for one year the period during which responsibility for the placement and foster care of dependent children, under the program of aid to families with dependent children under Title IV of the Social Security Act[...]
• The most comprehensive housing and urban renewal program in American history up until that point was carried out, including the first major provisions for middle-income housing, protection of urban open spaces, public mass transit, and private low-income housing[46].
• Omnibus Housing Bill 1961. In March 1961 Kennedy sent Congress a special message, proposing an ambitious and complex housing program to spur the economy, revitalize cities, and provide affordable housing for middle- and low-income families. The bill proposed spending $3.19 billion and placed major emphasis on improving the existing housing supply, instead of on new housing starts, and creating a cabinet-level Department of Housing and Urban Affairs to oversee the programs. [...]
• Urban renewal grants were increased from $2 to $4 million, while an additional 100,000 units of public housing were constructed.
• Opportunities were provided for coordinated planning of community development: technical assistance to state and local governments.
• Under the Kennedy Administration, there was a change of focus from a wrecker ball approach to small rehabilitation projects in order to preserve existing ‘urban textures’.
• Funds for housing for the elderly were increased[47].
• Title V of the Housing Act was amended (1961) to make nonfarm rural residents eligible for direct housing loans from the Farmers Home Administration. These changes extended the housing program to towns with a population of up to 2,500[48].
• The Senior Citizens Housing Act (1962) established loans for low-rent apartment projects which were “designed to meet the needs of people age 62 and over”

And so on. If our standard here is "when things happened on the graph" it sounds like this agenda was a resounding (astonishing, actually) success in combating poverty.

And yet the poor are still with us. Shouldn't that be some sort of wakeup call?

The fact remains that the periods of greatest reduction in poverty in America came through prosperity in the private sector, such prosperity created by the private sector, and not via government initiative. Sure government can claim short term results from this or that initiative. And then it tends to turn a blind eye to the long term unintended negative consequences of those same initiatives.

I think it is time to stop turning a blind eye.

Thomas Sowell has lived it and has devoted a great deal of his professional career researching, studying, and writing about the history of black Americans. He has long maintained that black Americans were the group advancing the most percentagewise in prosperity overall up until LBJ's 'War on Poverty.' Since that time the advancement came to a screeching halt. He blames liberal government policies for the destruction of the black family and the institutions that supported it and for creating much of the problems we have today.

A few years ago he wrote this for Capitalist Magazine:

. . . .In the liberal vision, slums bred crime. But brand-new government housing projects almost immediately became new centers of crime and quickly degenerated into new slums. Many of these projects later had to be demolished. Unfortunately, the assumptions behind those projects were not demolished, but live on in other disastrous programs, such as Section 8 housing.

Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years before the new 1960s attitudes toward sex spread rapidly through the schools, helped by War on Poverty money. These downward trends suddenly reversed and skyrocketed.

The murder rate had also been going down, for decades, and in 1960 was just under half of what it had been in 1934. Then the new 1960s policies toward curing the "root causes" of crime and creating new "rights" for criminals began. Rates of violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed.

The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.

Government social programs such as the War on Poverty were considered a way to reduce urban riots. Such programs increased sharply during the 1960s. So did urban riots. Later, during the Reagan administration, which was denounced for not promoting social programs, there were far fewer urban riots.

Neither the media nor most of our educational institutions question the assumptions behind the War on Poverty. Even conservatives often attribute much of the progress that has been made by lower-income people to these programs.

For example, the usually insightful quarterly magazine City Journal says in its current issue: "Beginning in the mid-sixties, the condition of most black Americans improved markedly."

That is completely false and misleading.

The economic rise of blacks began decades earlier, before any of the legislation and policies that are credited with producing that rise. The continuation of the rise of blacks out of poverty did not -- repeat, did not -- accelerate during the 1960s.

The poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent in 1960, during an era of virtually no major civil rights legislation or anti-poverty programs. It dropped another 17 percentage points during the decade of the 1960s and one percentage point during the 1970s, but this continuation of the previous trend was neither unprecedented nor something to be arbitrarily attributed to the programs like the War on Poverty. . . . .
Capitalism Magazine - War on Poverty Revisited

As it has been said there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.

I think we as a nation need to seriously rethink this before we consign more generations of Americans to crushing poverty and permanent unemployment.

 

[rightwinger]

Sorry Leftwinger - Actions have consequences. If you spend your life smoking cigarettes, getting high, drinking alcohol, and buying lottery tickets - you're life may not be so great. If you can't afford to pay your bills - Move in with family or friends, share expenses with other people that make bad decisions like you, eat less food. The best education you can give your kids is by example. Stop being a loser.

Sorry Zander...but it is the same old blame the victim mentality of the conservative right. "If only they hadn't blown their money...they would be rich like you and I"

I hear the same old stories about how poor people scam the system and drive Escalades while collecting food stamps. The same stories of "I was on line at the grocery store and they were buying Filet Mignon with food stamps"

The poor people I have met in my life worked hard. They drove 15 year old pickup trucks, had hand me down furniture and their kids wore hand me down clothes. If the car broke down and they needed $600 to repair it...they did without. If they had to pay a $1000 doctor bill...they did without. Electricity got cut off and bills did not get paid.

Not everyone in this world gets dealt a fair hand. Some get everything handed to them and some get nothing but scraps.

These people are not the losers that you claim. They work hard and have little to show for it. You can gloat and say they deserve it. But sometimes there is not an open path for success. In every society, some flourish and some suffer. A great society takes care of all its citizens

What an emotional load of crap !! A great society is a leftist fantasy. Great individuals are what we need.

The people you describe are economic losers (they may be kind, wonderful, loving people) because they never updated their skills and they fail to live below their means. They never put anything away for a rainy day - but they have all the toys and trapping a consumer could ask for!! Now it's raining and they want a handout ?? Too bad. You'll take the pittance that the government gives you and be happy you got anything. Move in with your friends or relatives. Sell your TV, I-pad, I-pod, Lap top, cell phone, your WII and your play station. Cancel the cable and internet. Maybe someday you'll understand that the only person responsible, for your life is YOU. It isn't "blame" leftwingnut - it is REALITY. The Government and "society" is not your mommy and daddy. Grow up and deal with it, or take the crumbs that "society" gives you.

It must be great to live in a simplistic rightwing world.

Everyone who is rich earned every penny. Everyone who is poor is a loser. The poor are living in the lap of luxury and are lazy incompetents who deserve their lot in life. Much of our success is not based on how hard you work but who you know. Your connections in life help determine how successful you are.

Not every poor person is on welfare. Most work low paying jobs that have limited potential for growth. The working poor in this country make hard decisions every day. It is not whether they should cancel HBO or whether to buy an IPod. They have to decide what essentials can be paid for. They do not have a financial safety net to cover unexpected losses. What little they earn must go for basics......luxuries are just a right wing myth

 

[snjmom]

Sorry Leftwinger - Actions have consequences. If you spend your life smoking cigarettes, getting high, drinking alcohol, and buying lottery tickets - you're life may not be so great. If you can't afford to pay your bills - Move in with family or friends, share expenses with other people that make bad decisions like you, eat less food. The best education you can give your kids is by example. Stop being a loser.

Sorry Zander...but it is the same old blame the victim mentality of the conservative right. "If only they hadn't blown their money...they would be rich like you and I"

I hear the same old stories about how poor people scam the system and drive Escalades while collecting food stamps. The same stories of "I was on line at the grocery store and they were buying Filet Mignon with food stamps"

The poor people I have met in my life worked hard. They drove 15 year old pickup trucks, had hand me down furniture and their kids wore hand me down clothes. If the car broke down and they needed $600 to repair it...they did without. If they had to pay a $1000 doctor bill...they did without. Electricity got cut off and bills did not get paid.

Not everyone in this world gets dealt a fair hand. Some get everything handed to them and some get nothing but scraps.

These people are not the losers that you claim. They work hard and have little to show for it. You can gloat and say they deserve it. But sometimes there is not an open path for success. In every society, some flourish and some suffer. A great society takes care of all its citizens

What an emotional load of crap !! A great society is a leftist fantasy. Great individuals are what we need.

The people you describe are economic losers (they may be kind, wonderful, loving people) because they never updated their skills and they fail to live below their means. They never put anything away for a rainy day - but they have all the toys and trapping a consumer could ask for!! Now it's raining and they want a handout ?? Too bad. You'll take the pittance that the government gives you and be happy you got anything. Move in with your friends or relatives. Sell your TV, I-pad, I-pod, Lap top, cell phone, your WII and your play station. Cancel the cable and internet. Maybe someday you'll understand that the only person responsible, for your life is YOU. It isn't "blame" leftwingnut - it is REALITY. The Government and "society" is not your mommy and daddy. Grow up and deal with it, or take the crumbs that "society" gives you.

Now that's an emotional load of crap. How much should one put away for the outsourcing of your industry to Asia? What skills update ensures employment in an economy that is paying off the casino bets of the hedge fund managers? How do you circumvent the occupancy laws of your state (mine is 2 persons per bedroom)? I think you have a very skewed view of how the poor live. I know of very few with computers or video games and cell phones are cheaper than land lines.

 

[Oddball]

Where did I say you said that? Oh, that's right, I didn't. My concern with the origination of foolhardy ideas is that there are more emanating from the same source. And third time, how do you propose we address the differences between short-term and generation welfare useage?

By eliminating federal welfare....Problem solved.

 

[SFC Ollie]

Sorry Zander...but it is the same old blame the victim mentality of the conservative right. "If only they hadn't blown their money...they would be rich like you and I"

I hear the same old stories about how poor people scam the system and drive Escalades while collecting food stamps. The same stories of "I was on line at the grocery store and they were buying Filet Mignon with food stamps"

The poor people I have met in my life worked hard. They drove 15 year old pickup trucks, had hand me down furniture and their kids wore hand me down clothes. If the car broke down and they needed $600 to repair it...they did without. If they had to pay a $1000 doctor bill...they did without. Electricity got cut off and bills did not get paid.

Not everyone in this world gets dealt a fair hand. Some get everything handed to them and some get nothing but scraps.

These people are not the losers that you claim. They work hard and have little to show for it. You can gloat and say they deserve it. But sometimes there is not an open path for success. In every society, some flourish and some suffer. A great society takes care of all its citizens

What an emotional load of crap !! A great society is a leftist fantasy. Great individuals are what we need.

The people you describe are economic losers (they may be kind, wonderful, loving people) because they never updated their skills and they fail to live below their means. They never put anything away for a rainy day - but they have all the toys and trapping a consumer could ask for!! Now it's raining and they want a handout ?? Too bad. You'll take the pittance that the government gives you and be happy you got anything. Move in with your friends or relatives. Sell your TV, I-pad, I-pod, Lap top, cell phone, your WII and your play station. Cancel the cable and internet. Maybe someday you'll understand that the only person responsible, for your life is YOU. It isn't "blame" leftwingnut - it is REALITY. The Government and "society" is not your mommy and daddy. Grow up and deal with it, or take the crumbs that "society" gives you.

Now that's an emotional load of crap. How much should one put away for the outsourcing of your industry to Asia? What skills update ensures employment in an economy that is paying off the casino bets of the hedge fund managers? How do you circumvent the occupancy laws of your state (mine is 2 persons per bedroom)? I think you have a very skewed view of how the poor live. I know of very few with computers or video games and cell phones are cheaper than land lines.

You live in Missouri? that's in the USA? And you claim there is a law saying that you can only sleep 2 people in a bedroom?

 

[Oddball]

Let's say we eliminate Medicaid altogether, poof, gone.

How does that help eliminate poverty in America?

You know, over the past several months a handful of (conservative) states have explored that option--ending the state Medicaid program. They've all concluded that this would be a very bad idea.

A "bad idea" only from the standpoint that they can't get re-elected, not form the that of fiscal responsibility.

 

[SFC Ollie]

And BTW for all those crying about manufacturing jobs. We (the USA) are still number one..

What are the Top Manufacturing Countries?

 

[Oddball]

Only if one defines Resounding Success as getting the government to mug hardworking people on one's behalf.

I was thinking more along the lines of a 10 percentage point drop in the poverty rate in the space of a single decade (i.e. virtually cutting it in half).

According to the graph, that happened mostly in the decade before 1965 and the LBJ welfare state....How'd that ever come about?

 

[snjmom]

What an emotional load of crap !! A great society is a leftist fantasy. Great individuals are what we need.

The people you describe are economic losers (they may be kind, wonderful, loving people) because they never updated their skills and they fail to live below their means. They never put anything away for a rainy day - but they have all the toys and trapping a consumer could ask for!! Now it's raining and they want a handout ?? Too bad. You'll take the pittance that the government gives you and be happy you got anything. Move in with your friends or relatives. Sell your TV, I-pad, I-pod, Lap top, cell phone, your WII and your play station. Cancel the cable and internet. Maybe someday you'll understand that the only person responsible, for your life is YOU. It isn't "blame" leftwingnut - it is REALITY. The Government and "society" is not your mommy and daddy. Grow up and deal with it, or take the crumbs that "society" gives you.

Now that's an emotional load of crap. How much should one put away for the outsourcing of your industry to Asia? What skills update ensures employment in an economy that is paying off the casino bets of the hedge fund managers? How do you circumvent the occupancy laws of your state (mine is 2 persons per bedroom)? I think you have a very skewed view of how the poor live. I know of very few with computers or video games and cell phones are cheaper than land lines.

You live in Missouri? that's in the USA? And you claim there is a law saying that you can only sleep 2 people in a bedroom?

Yep. Here you go.

mo.gov/publications/landlordtenant

Not just with rentals.

Get Married or Move Out

 

[Samson]

It must be great to live in a simplistic rightwing world.

I think is would be more fun to live in the morally relativistic left-wing world.....and change the definition of "loser" to fit my own agenda.

 

[Samson]

Only if one defines Resounding Success as getting the government to mug hardworking people on one's behalf.

I was thinking more along the lines of a 10 percentage point drop in the poverty rate in the space of a single decade (i.e. virtually cutting it in half).

According to the graph, that happened mostly in the decade before 1965 and the LBJ welfare state....How'd that ever come about?

The total destruction of Asian and European ecomomies in 1945 may have had something to do with it.

Nothing like nuking and firebombing your industrial rivals to boost the economy.

 

[Oddball]

Um...I'm pretty sure that graph is only counting America.

 

[Foxfyre]

I was thinking more along the lines of a 10 percentage point drop in the poverty rate in the space of a single decade (i.e. virtually cutting it in half).

According to the graph, that happened mostly in the decade before 1965 and the LBJ welfare state....How'd that ever come about?

The total destruction of Asian and European ecomomies in 1945 may have had something to do with it.

Nothing like nuking and firebombing your industrial rivals to boost the economy.

But the fallacy in this theory is that it cost us much in American blood and treasure to rebuild those economies which we did.

And the fallacy in your theory is that many millions of guys deployed overseas came home needing jobs. The unemployment rate should have skyrocketed but it didn't even though a lot of the gals who had been filling in during the war elected to continue to work at paying jobs.

The lesson to be learned is that government programs will temporarily help whatever special interest group is targeted but will invariably result in unintended negative consequences that generally result in worse situations than what was originally addressed.

I think we have to stop ignoring that fact and do it differently.

 

[Greenbeard]

And yet the poor are still with us. Shouldn't that be some sort of wakeup call?

The fact remains that the periods of greatest reduction in poverty in America came through prosperity in the private sector, such prosperity created by the private sector, and not via government initiative. Sure government can claim short term results from this or that initiative. And then it tends to turn a blind eye to the long term unintended negative consequences of those same initiatives.

I would think it's obvious that poverty reduction is a function of both. Yes, the poverty rate invariably rises during recessions and falls during expansions; economic growth is the tide that raises our collective wealth. That's why comparing the poverty rate of a group during the Great Depression to the poverty rates of that group at the end of the postwar expansion (as you do in your post) will obviously show a reduction with time.

But the "wakeup call" you're talking about corresponds to structural features of our economy, mostly regarding distribution effects. That is, policy helps to regulate how much the poverty rate is pushed up by recessions and it helps to ensure that prosperity is widely distributed when it returns.

That's why in 1959 at the end of a 8-month recession in which GDP shrank 3.1 percent and unemployment reached 7.5% the poverty rate could be pushing 22%, whereas today in the aftermath of the largest recession since the Great Depression--one lasting 18 months, reaching double digit unemployment and seeing a 4.1% decline in GDP--we see poverty rates of 14.2%. That's the highest the poverty rate has gone in the post Kennedy-LBJ era and it's still 8 points below the levels reached in the wake of the smaller 1958 recession.

I have no doubt there are some purists out there who would love nothing more than for poverty rates to be pushing 25 or 30 percent today. But they're not and policy plays a role in that being the case.

 

[Foxfyre]

And yet the poor are still with us. Shouldn't that be some sort of wakeup call?

The fact remains that the periods of greatest reduction in poverty in America came through prosperity in the private sector, such prosperity created by the private sector, and not via government initiative. Sure government can claim short term results from this or that initiative. And then it tends to turn a blind eye to the long term unintended negative consequences of those same initiatives.

I would think it's obvious that poverty reduction is a function of both. Yes, the poverty rate invariably rises during recessions and falls during expansions; economic growth is the tide that raises our collective wealth. That's why comparing the poverty rate of a group during the Great Depression to the poverty rates of that group at the end of the postwar expansion (as you do in your post) will obviously show a reduction with time.

But the "wakeup call" you're talking about corresponds to structural features of our economy, mostly regarding distribution effects. That is, policy helps to regulate how much the poverty rate is pushed up by recessions and it helps to ensure that prosperity is widely distributed when it returns.

That's why in 1959 at the end of a 8-month recession in which GDP shrank 3.1 percent and unemployment reached 7.5% the poverty rate could be pushing 22%, whereas today in the aftermath of the largest recession since the Great Depression--one lasting 18 months, reaching double digit unemployment and seeing a 4.1% decline in GDP--we see poverty rates of 14.2%. That's the highest the poverty rate has gone in the post Kennedy-LBJ era and it's still 8 points below the levels reached in the wake of the smaller 1958 recession.

I have no doubt there are some purists out there who would love nothing more than for poverty rates to be pushing 25 or 30 percent today. But they're not and policy plays a role in that being the case.

Your argument is coherent and well laid out.

Your implication that some would love for poverty rates to be higher is as insulting as the leftist mantra that conservatives don't care about the poor.

Your argument does not take into consideration the floating threshhold for poverty that is frequently adjusting over the years or definitions of poverty that also change from decade to decade. That has to be part of the equation in analyzing the effectiveness of government programs.

And your argument does not take into consideration that one in five children are still technically living in poverty and most of those live with single moms with no father in the picture. Such was NOT the case in the 1940's and 50's and is also an important consideration in the equation.

It is also important to acknowledge the steady deterioration of education, graduation rates, and the deterioration in quality of life issues when evaluating the effectiveness of the War on Poverty.

When you look at the whole big picture and read the experienced and educated analysis of historians/economists like Thomas Sowell, it is not difficult to see that we need to rethink government as the proper vehicle to address poverty.

It ain't working to much of anybody's advantage but the truly lazy and the politics and bureaucrats who prosper by making sure people remain poor and dependent.

 

[Samson]

According to the graph, that happened mostly in the decade before 1965 and the LBJ welfare state....How'd that ever come about?

The total destruction of Asian and European ecomomies in 1945 may have had something to do with it.

Nothing like nuking and firebombing your industrial rivals to boost the economy.

But the fallacy in this theory is that it cost us much in American blood and treasure to rebuild those economies which we did.

And the fallacy in your theory is that many millions of guys deployed overseas came home needing jobs. .

Why do you love to rain on my parade.

You make war sound like a Bad Thing.

 

[Flopper]

The way to find your way out of poverty is work your way out of poverty. This is not an easy thing to do. If you come from poverty, it is likely that you have nobody to show you how to do this. Outside of mastering a skill or developing a steady, consistant work ethic, you must also understand that the Boss is not automatically your enemy.

A kid who understands team work in a sports sense may not understand that it applies in a workplace, also. If he can be taught to see and communicate with the boss as he would with a coach, he will find greater success than he will if he sees the boss as a cop and communicates with him as he would if he was a criminal.

I've had the same conversation with a pretty good number of kids who are in the "first real job" trying to bring them to an understanding of how to speak with the supervisor and how to offer themselves to the team in order that they advance in the company.

The problem is not that they are stupid or that they are incapable. The problem is that they have been beat by circmstance so often that they have become afraid to hope. The slightest obstacle fulfils their own prophecy that the game is rigged. My life has taught me that there is always another way if this one doesn't work.

Their lives' experiences have often demonstrated that every way leads to the same dead end.

If you add to that sum of experience limited literacy or a criminal record, you start to understand the "cycle of poverty".

If you have nothing, it takes very little to lose it all. Every problem could spell the end and every conflict could change your life.

Good points. Experiences to affect the development of a child into a responsible adult.

The experiences fostered by the Great Society Programs have been ones of abdication of responsibility, aggrieved victimhood, and dependence upon the government. Given the generations produced, the Great Society has been an EPIC FAIL.

The only problem with your argument...it's BULLSHIT

Between 1964 and 1968, nearly one of every three poor Americans left the poverty rolls, the largest drop in a four-year period ever recorded. The war on poverty was a huge success, even though LBJ pulled funding to pay for the Vietnam War.

One thing that never changes is the right's self centered justifications, their collective fairy tales that we must all believe, so no one can say their priorities are ME, MYSELF and I.

I don't buy it, not a word of it and here's why; your fairy tale requires other people to play along and conform to a role you supply for them. There's always the 'able bodied but lazy poor person', the 'bleeding heart' liberal who just wants to hand out other people's money and of course, the clear headed 'conservative' whose 'tough love' always saves the day. The right refuses to educated themselves on what the 'War on Poverty' was about and what it wasn't about, that ignorance enables all the right wing bloviation that comes out of their asses. But it's a lot easier for you to define it under YOUR self righteous terms so you don't have to care. It is also predictable that they chose 'welfare', because that fits so neatly into their 'dependency' and 'entitlement' dismissal of others. There are reasons for and realities to poverty, you have focused on the least of them.

When JFK's brother-in law Sargent Shriver accepted LBJ's challenge and took on the 'War on Poverty' the first thing he discovered was rather startling and disturbing. Half of the Americans living in poverty were children. Another large segment were elderly and another segment were mentally and/or physically disabled. So a HUGE segment of the poor fit the TRUE definition of a dependent. So there is an obligation as a civil society to make sure those real dependents are not trampled on or extinguished.

To address some of the players in your fairy tale, voila! We have an unabashed flaming liberal...Sargent Shriver. But I hate to disappoint you. Sargent Shriver HATED welfare and had no intention of creating a handout program. He didn't believe in handouts, he believed in opportunity, responsibility, community and empowerment.. The 'War on Poverty' was called the Office of Economic Opportunity. The core principles were opportunity, responsibility, community and empowerment. The program goals were maximum feasible participation. One of the concepts of empowerment was poor people had a right to one-third of the seats on every local poverty program board, so they had a say in what were the priorities in their community. It was a community based program that focused on education as the keys to the city. Programs such as VISTA, Job Corps, Community Action Program, and Head Start were created to increase opportunity for the poor so they could pull themselves out of poverty with a hand UP, not a hand out. Even when Johnson effectively pulled the plug on the War on Poverty to fund the war in Vietnam, Shriver fought on and won. During the Shriver years more Americans got out of poverty than during any similar time in our history. (The Clinton years - employing the same philosophy - were the second best.)

Ref

Yep, The war on poverty was a success. It actually began early in the Kennedy administration. In 1964 Johnson announced the war on poverty. As you can see from your charts, the number of people in poverty was going down rapidly in the 60's and bottomed out in the late seventies. The recession and the Reagan era of deregulation ended the war on poverty.

 

[boedicca]

The total destruction of Asian and European ecomomies in 1945 may have had something to do with it.

Nothing like nuking and firebombing your industrial rivals to boost the economy.

But the fallacy in this theory is that it cost us much in American blood and treasure to rebuild those economies which we did.

And the fallacy in your theory is that many millions of guys deployed overseas came home needing jobs. .

Why do you love to rain on my parade.

You make war sound like a Bad Thing.

C'mon Sammy. Get it right. The correct phrase is:

Bad Thang!

 

[Samson]

But the fallacy in this theory is that it cost us much in American blood and treasure to rebuild those economies which we did.

And the fallacy in your theory is that many millions of guys deployed overseas came home needing jobs. .

Why do you love to rain on my parade.

You make war sound like a Bad Thing.

C'mon Sammy. Get it right. The correct phrase is:

Bad Thang!

You GO GURL!


***I love it when you've braided your hair in corn rows***