This year marks the 51st anniversary since Lyndon Johnson launched his War on Poverty and made poverty reduction the centerpiece of his Great Society domestic agenda.
Whether we won this war, however, is still a subject of much debate.
1960s: significant achievements
There was considerable optimism in the 1960s that we could defeat poverty. Standards of living rose rapidly in that decade, income inequality declined, and civil rights were expanded for previously disenfranchised groups.
From 1964 -— the year the War on Poverty was declared -— to 1969 the poverty rate dropped substantially from 19% to 12% (and reached a low of 11% in 1973).
In 1971, Robert Lampman, who had been a key economic adviser to President Lyndon Johnson on antipoverty initiatives, predicted that poverty would be eradicated by 1980. Unfortunately, this did not come to pass.
1970s – 2000s: down, up and down
During the 1970s and 1980s, economic growth slowed and income inequality grew. African Americans, particularly in many inner cities, continued to fare poorly, and the number of Hispanics living in high poverty neighborhoods also grew.
