The reasonable conclusion from these events is that the attempt to engineer the end of poverty with Federal poverty programs was in fact misconceived, unnecessary, and tragically counterproductive. The engine that had previously reduced poverty, and which in fact had drawn (and draws) people from all over the world to America, was in part turned off, at least for the target population which it was especially intended to help. The same engine continues to work for others, as people from India, Korea, Armenia, Egypt, etc. achieve financial success the old-fashioned way: starting businesses and working 16 hour days. On the other hand, it has proven extremely difficult to turn off the anti-poverty industry once it got entrenched in politics and bureaucracy. Cutting back on AFDC can easily be attacked as "starving children," even when the children then grow up in environments where honest paid work mostly doesn't even exist and where they are more likely to die by gunfire than by old age.
The poverty warrior interest group created by the War on Poverty continues to advocate precisely the same solutions, like job training, non-judgmental welfare payments, and more and more money, that may decisively be seen to have failed in the 70's. One wonders if a lot of this is not disingenuous. The May 1, 2000 Forbes magazine reports, "One [Chicago] alderman told law student Daniel Liljenquist that he didn't want his constituents going into business for themselves because it might lead them to believe they could become self-sufficient" [p. 88, "Strange Bedfellows"]. This is the frank peonage of the welfare state in a nutshell.
[The "welfare reform" reluctantly signed by President Clinton in 1996 recognizes the limits of what can be done by the Federal Government, but the myth is still perpetuated that something can and must be done by Government at some level to end poverty. Instead, what can and must be done is for Government to get out of the poverty business and for people to realize that poverty can be reduced only by the enterprise and industry of private individuals, both those who work hard for pay and those who invest capital in new business. That was a self-evident truth for most of American history, but it has now become corrupted into the idea of "welfare rights," that certain people have the right to be supported in the manner to which they have become accustomed by taxes on the labor and capital of others. That is a formula for parasitism and political rent-seeking, not for the end of poverty.
The persistence of false remedies in the face of the evidence may be seen in a Los Angeles Times article of October 6, 1997, "Promise of Reducing Poverty May Be Found Inside Marriage Vows," by Ronald Brownstein. First it is noted that the Census Bureau had just reported that the poverty rate for the country was still 13.7% -- higher than it was in 1990. This is then contrasted, however, with the statistic that only 5.6% of married families are below the poverty level. Furthermore, of married families where "at least one partner works full time, year-round, no matter how menial the job," the poverty rate is only 1.8%. On the other hand, "nearly one-third" of families headed by single women, and almost 14% of families headed by single men, are below the poverty level.
