poverty

Existing Social Welfare and entitlement programs have grown and new programs have been created over the past fifty years sprouting from President Johnson’s initiative in the 1960s. President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that America would wage an unconditional War on Poverty in his 1964 State of the Union address to the congress of the United States. President Johnson sought to lift millions out of poverty by giving Americans a fair chance to develop their skills in order to become competitive in the marketplace. The War on Poverty was developed with the intentions to eradicate the root causes of poverty rather than solely treat the symptoms. The Economic and Opportunity Act of 1964 was an integral component of the War on Poverty that gave birth to several new government programs such as VISTA, Job Corps, and Head Start by giving federal grants to states in an effort to increase the employability of young people. The intentions and efforts of this Act would represent the beginnings of the “War on Poverty” as outlined in the piece of legislation: “It is the policy of the United States to eliminate the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty in this nation by opening, to everyone, the opportunity for education and training, the opportunity to work, and the opportunity to live in decency and dignity” (Sreenivasan 1). The intentions put forth by President Johnson and the 88th congress for the War on Poverty have failed over the course of half a century as economic dependence on government aid continues to follow a well-defined upward trend line whilst the poverty rate has remained stagnant for decades. Record dependence on government aid from programs that support and encourage single parenting has contributed towards the collapse o...

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...tance to Needy Families (TANF). The TANF has been considered a success in reducing dependency as it requires recipients of aid to work thus creating an incentive to escape poverty and reliance on welfare. Since 1996, the growth of out-of wedlock births as slowed and employment has increased.

The Food Stamp program now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(SNAP) still operates under the same basic War on Poverty principles that the debunked the AFDC program. It provides rewards for idleness and creates generations of dependent Americans thus leading to the same issues with out of wedlock childbirths as the AFDC did. Without a work incentive, children will grow up with their parent being reliant on the program. This reliance will likely be inherited by the child creating long term beneficiaries who never acquire the motivation to escape poverty.