Concentrated Poverty

poverty with an average growth of
almost 1 million per year. According to
the Cato Institute, a libertarian think
tank, since the Johnson Administration,
almost $15 trillion has been spent on
welfare, with poverty rates being about
the same as during the Johnson
Administration. A 2013 study published
by Columbia University asserts that
without the social safety net, the poverty
rate would have been 29% for 2012,
instead of 16%. According
to OECD data from 2012, the poverty
rate before taxes and transfers was
28.3%, while the poverty rate after taxes
and transfers fell to 17.4%.
The OEO was dismantled by President
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.
United States Secretary of Health,
Education, and Welfare under
President Jimmy Carter, Joseph A.
Califano, Jr. wrote in 1999 in an issue of
the Washington Monthly that:
In waging the war on poverty,
congressional opposition was
too strong to pass an income
maintenance law. So LBJ took
advantage of the biggest
automatic cash machine
around: Social Security. He
proposed, and Congress
enacted, whopping increases in
the minimum benefits that lifted
some two million Americans 65
and older above the poverty
line. In 1996, thanks to those
increased minimum benefits,
Social Security lifted 12 million
senior citizens above the
poverty line ... No Great Society
undertaking has been subjected
to more withering conservative
attacks than the Office of
Economic Opportunity. Yet, the
War on Poverty was founded on
the most conservative principle:
Put the power in the local
community, not in Washington;
give people at the grassroots
the ability to stand tall on their
own two feet. Conservative
claims that the OEO poverty
programs were nothing but a
waste of money are
preposterous ... Eleven of the
12 programs that OEO launched
in the mid-'60s are alive, well
and funded at an annual rate
exceeding $10 billion;
apparently legislators believe
they're still working.
Reception and Critique
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.
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