A Look Back At Paul Ryan’s Critique On The War On Poverty

Almost a decade ago, Congressman Paul Ryan celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the War on Poverty with an extensive evaluation of the many programs under that umbrella. President Lyndon Johnson announced the effort in his State of the Union address in January of 1964, and since then the complex of programs and spending have become well entrenched entitlements. There are at least 20 distinct programs to address housing issues at the federal level that can be grouped as War on Poverty programs. Before taking a look back at Ryan’s assessment and criticism of the War on Poverty, and its housing elements, it’s worth looking at the origins and history of the war.

For a broad overview, the Washington Post at the time of the 50^th anniversary of the speech created a page, Everything You Need to Know About the War on Poverty, which is a useful reference. The War on Poverty was the more ambitious name for legislation proposed called the Economic Opportunity Act (the Act) a massive piece of legislation that became 40 programs aimed at addressing poverty at all levels of American life and government. But the main four and best-known programs established were,

• The Medicare and Medicaid programs were a result of the laws establishing Social Security. Medicare was aimed at seniors, providing them access to basic health care, and Medicaid was intended to do the same for people in poverty with no health insurance.
• Food stamps, originally actual pieces of paper that looked like a combination of United States currency and a stamp which could be used to by basic food items. Those of us who grew up in families that used them won’t ever forget those stamps.
• The Job Corps, a program that already existed but that the Act expanded, and the Volunteers In Service To America program or VISTA. The Job Corp was aimed at creating youth employment and the VISTA program was intended to deploy college students to non-profits and improvement projects in areas of poverty.
• Subsequent legislation, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) or Title I, was enacted with the intention of supporting children in poverty with a variety of interventions and support from nutrition to special education for students struggling with basic skills.

In 1964 the poverty rate in the United States was 19 percent and there was growing concern about the impacts of poverty on society and the economy (we’ll take a look at the measure of poverty later). The Washington Post page points out the various cultural critiques that began to emerge in the early 1960s that, along with the Civil Rights movement, began to call out disparities in the American economy.

Later that year, accepting the Nobel Prize, Martin Luther King said, “A second evil which plagues the modern world is that of poverty . . . Most of these poverty-stricken children of God have never seen a physician or a dentist.” And while King’s emphasis was global, his efforts in the United States always called out disparities in both urban and rural America. And it was an election year for Johnson who ascended to the Presidency with the assignation of John F. Kennedy; the War on Poverty was also a political effort to consolidate and build on the deep political constituency Democrats created in the 1930s with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs.

Was the War a success? A Brookings assessment by Ron Haskins points out “poverty declined by 30 percent within five years of Johnson’s declaration of war in 1964,” but goes on to say, “there has been little progress since the 1960s.” Just before the 50^th anniversary the poverty rate was about 15%, hardly a victory if judged on that number.

The simple answer to the question is, “No.” Poverty still exists in the United States in spite of more than $23 trillion spent on the problem of poverty with an ongoing annual outlay of $1 trillion. But this is controversial. The Washington Post page on the War argues that, “without government programs, poverty would have actually increased over the period in question. Government action is literally the only reason we have less poverty.” It’s the things-would-be-a-lot-worse argument, one that is rational and logical but just as controversial as the simple, “No.”

Haskins, however, makes some useful observations. He points out something I always do, which is that we eliminate poverty today by simply giving everyone in the country enough cash to get them above the measure of poverty. If the annual outlay of $1 trillion was divided up among the 14.4% percent of people in poverty, about 48 million people, each would get about $20,000, enough to almost double the income of a single person in poverty who earns just $13,000 per year. Of course, this is fraught with all kinds of hazards. Wouldn’t people working just quit their jobs to take the free money?

And the deeper question is, “Is poverty just the lack of money today?” That is, isn’t poverty a complex of social, cultural, and economic issues that together limit people’s potential to be self-sufficient. Education is a factor, with people who have less education not earning as much and those without part time or intermittent employment don’t fare as well either. Haskins also questions what he calls “personal choices,” and that families without two parents are five times more likely to be in poverty than in tact families.

The question of whether the War on Poverty has made things better for people, worse, or had no effect is a profoundly moral, political, ideological, and quantitative question. What is undoubtable is that poverty in the United States still exists and whether it can truly be eradicated, ever, is open to debate. The goal President Johnson set in his speech in 1964, however, “to relieve the symptom[s] of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it” is a worthwhile goal. And it is also true, as he said, “No single piece of legislation, however, is going to suffice.”