War on Poverty: Did we win or lose? | in 60 seconds
In 1964 President Johnson, declared a national War on Poverty. So how we done?By one metric, not too well. In 1966, when the last major War on Poverty programs were coming online, the official census poverty rate stood at 14.7 percent. Since then, the government has spent about 20 trillion dollars on these programs. And with all this money, we've only dropped the rate by about one percentage point, to 13.5 percent. Now, the official poverty rate is an imperfect measurement. It excludes some government programs and the modern comforts that capitalism and innovation have brought to everyone, up and down the income distribution. But America wasn't just trying to make poverty a little less miserable to endure. We were trying to make poverty more escapable. If more Americans had been able to escape poverty and earn their own success, we would see a lot more progress in the official poverty rate. That's why the War on Poverty has been a moral failure. We need to make poverty not just easier to bear, but easier to escape.
War on Poverty: Did we win or lose?
Татьяна Яблокова
Created on July 12, 2024
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War on Poverty: Did we win or lose? | in 60 seconds
In 1964 President Johnson, declared a national War on Poverty. So how we done?By one metric, not too well. In 1966, when the last major War on Poverty programs were coming online, the official census poverty rate stood at 14.7 percent. Since then, the government has spent about 20 trillion dollars on these programs. And with all this money, we've only dropped the rate by about one percentage point, to 13.5 percent. Now, the official poverty rate is an imperfect measurement. It excludes some government programs and the modern comforts that capitalism and innovation have brought to everyone, up and down the income distribution. But America wasn't just trying to make poverty a little less miserable to endure. We were trying to make poverty more escapable. If more Americans had been able to escape poverty and earn their own success, we would see a lot more progress in the official poverty rate. That's why the War on Poverty has been a moral failure. We need to make poverty not just easier to bear, but easier to escape.