Lyndon Johnson in Christian Science Monitor
On Families & Children:
War on Poverty result: fewer poor kids, but more single moms
The number of Americans who live in single-parent households has soared since [the initiation of the War on Poverty in] 1964--and those families are still more likely to be poor than 2-parent households are. The numbers are stunning in their apparent
contradiction: For anyone living in a household headed by a single mother, the odds of living in poverty have fallen from 50% in 1964 to 34% today. Yet the other side of the coin is that single-mom households now account for a greater share of all poor
Americans today (34%) than in 1964 (21%).Behind this seeming anomaly is the fact that there are simply more single-parent households today. 25% of Americans now live in "families with female householder, no husband present." That's up from 8.5% in
1965. Back then, the decline of traditional family structure stirred discussion as a challenge confronting poor & urban African-Americans. Today, researchers are concerned about declining marriage rates for a broad swath of working-class Americans.
Source: Christian Science Monitor, "Great Society 50th Anniversary"
Jan 8, 2014
On Social Security:
War on Poverty result: Senior poverty down by all measures
Perhaps the most stunning consequence of social welfare policies over the past 50 years is the gains made against poverty among seniors, and the comparative lack of progress for children. Social Security and Medicare (and to a lesser extent Medicaid)
have helped to bring the poverty rate for Americans 65 and older way down, from 28.5% in 1966 to about 9% in 2012. Even as the US population has grown by 60%, the number of seniors in poverty has fallen from 5 million to fewer than 4 million.Yet child
poverty has hardly budged in the Census data. The poverty rate was actually higher in 2012 for people high school age or younger (at 21.8%) than in 1966 (when the rate was 17.6%).
Those raw numbers may belie the progress that's been made. The
introduction of food stamps, arriving nationally during the 1970s, helped to drive down rates of severe malnutrition among children. Although poverty remained, by the late 1970s severe child malnutrition and related health conditions were rare.
Source: Christian Science Monitor, "Great Society 50th Anniversary"
Jan 8, 2014
On Welfare & Poverty:
War on Poverty results: poverty down; safety net up
- The official US poverty rate was 15% in 2012 (most recent available), compared with 19% of the population in 1964 when Pres. Johnson delivered his "war" remarks in a State of the Union message.
- The poverty rate would be lower still today,
economists say, if not for the deep recession that ended in 2009 and from which the US economy is still recovering.
- Still, a rise in the overall population means that the number of Americans who were poor in 2012--at more than 46 million--was higher
than the 36 million in poverty back when LBJ spoke.
- The rise of safety-net programs, including those championed by Johnson, has helped to reduce both overall poverty and the likelihood that a single-parent household will be in poverty.
Another mitigating factor is rising job opportunities for women.
- Yet the number of Americans who live in single-parent households has soared since 1964--and those families are still more likely to be poor than two-parent households are.
Source: Christian Science Monitor, "Great Society 50th Anniversary"
Jan 8, 2014
Page last updated: Mar 19, 2021