A Nation Like No Other, by Speaker Newt Gingrich: on Welfare & Poverty
Newt Gingrich:
FactCheck: Poverty rate has fallen under War on Poverty
Bill O'Reilly of Fox News cited the same statistics as in Newt Gingrich's book on the War on Poverty; Gingrich wrote: "From
1965 to 2008... the years-long decline in American poverty suddenly stopped. By 2009 the poverty rate stood at 14.3%--about where it was when the War of Poverty began."PolitiFact.com reports:
[LBJ's programs] focused on elderly poverty, which is down to 13%. [Gingrich also] uses the wrong numbers. The poverty rate was 17.3% in 1965, not 14%. So the poverty has fallen by 3 percentage points, or by about 1/6 its original level.
Counting different years shows even more decline. In 1962, the poverty rate ranged was 20%. In pre-recession 2007, it stood at 12.5%. Comparing 1962 and 2007, the poverty rate dropped by over 1/3.
Source: FactCheck 2012 on "A Nation Like No Other" by PolitiFact.com
Jul 26, 2011
Lyndon Johnson:
Announced "War on Poverty" in 1965
President Lyndon Johnson famously announced the War on Poverty. From 1965 to 2008, total spending on this "war" reached nearly $16 trillion in 2008 dollars. And what did we get in return? Soon after the War on
Poverty programs were adopted, the years-long decline in American poverty suddenly stopped. By 2009 the poverty rate stood at 14.3%--about where it was when the War of Poverty began. In 1960, nearly
2/3rds of low-income households were headed by persons who worked, but by 1991, the proportion had fallen to 1/3, with only 11% working full time, year round. With the government providing so much in free welfare, many people chose not to work.
Welfare recipients who go to work lose their benefits as their income rises. This is effectively an extra tax on work that must be paid on top of the usual array of federal, state, and local taxes.
Source: A Nation Like No Other, by Newt Gingrich, p.109
Jun 13, 2011
Newt Gingrich:
When free welfare is provided, people choose not to work
President Lyndon Johnson famously announced the War on Poverty. From 1965 to 2008, total spending on this "war" reached nearly $16 trillion in 2008 dollars. And what did we get in return? Soon after the War on
Poverty programs were adopted, the years-long decline in American poverty suddenly stopped. By 2009 the poverty rate stood at 14.3%--about where it was when the War of Poverty began. In 1960, nearly
2/3rds of low-income households were headed by persons who worked, but by 1991, the proportion had fallen to 1/3, with only 11% working full time, year round. With the government providing so much in free welfare, many people chose not to work.
Welfare recipients who go to work lose their benefits as their income rises. This is effectively an extra tax on work that must be paid on top of the usual array of federal, state, and local taxes.
Source: A Nation Like No Other, by Newt Gingrich, p.109
Jun 13, 2011
Newt Gingrich:
1996: One out of 184 programs block-granted back to states
In 1996, welfare reform returned the share of federal spending on the program to each state in the form of a "block grant" to be used in a new welfare program. The key to the 1996 reforms was that the new block grants to each state were finite, not
matching, so federal funding did not vary with the amount the state spent. If a state's new program cost more, the state had to pay the extra costs itself. If the program cost less, the state could keep the savings.There was just one problem with the
1996 reforms: they only reformed one federal program. The federal government sponsors another 184 means tested welfare programs, including Medicaid, Food Stamps, 27 low-income housing programs, 30 employment and training programs, 34 social services
programs, and 24 low-income child care programs, among others. All these programs could and should be block granted back to the states just as AFDC was in 1996, effectively shedding the federal government of responsibility for welfare.
Source: A Nation Like No Other, by Newt Gingrich, p.110-111
Jun 13, 2011
Page last updated: Feb 19, 2019