Full Citation
Title: The War on Poverty
Citation Type: Book, Section
Publication Year: 2018
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Abstract: What has happened since President Lyndon Johnson declared an unconditional War on Poverty in his January 8, 1964 State of the Union Address? There is no doubt that the United States has become a more affluent nation since that famous declaration: Real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has in fact doubled over the past 50 years. Despite this growth, the official poverty rate for 2012 now stands at 15 percent, a full 4 percentage points higher than it was during the early 1970s. And the poverty rate is only 4 percentage points lower than the 19 percent rate of 1964. This apparent lack of progress against poverty cannot be blamed on the economic devastation wrought by the Great Recession, although that certainly increased poverty over the last five years. Rather, the direct connection between economic growth and poverty reduction is now much weaker than in the past. Poverty remains high because many workers have not shared in the economic gains of the past 40 years; instead most of those gains have been captured by the economic elite. Over these same decades, the official poverty measure has increasingly obscured some of the progress that has been made in reducing poverty because it fails to account for many government benefits the poor now receive, such as Food Stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit. If these safety net benefits were counted as family income, today's official poverty rate would fall from 15 to about 11 percent...
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Authors: Danzinger, Sheldon; Wimer, Christopher
Editors: Grusky, David; Hill, Jasmine
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Volume Title: Inequality in the 21st Century: A Reader
Publisher: Westview Prints
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Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Poverty and Welfare
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