50 Years of "War on Poverty"

[SoulBiter]

From my perspective there have been improvements. The changing bar of what is considered 'poverty' makes it hard to tell that things have gotten better. However, just like the "War on Terrorism", this war will be a constant battle. There will always be poor people, less in good economic times, more in bad economic times.

From what I read we have spent 15 trillion or so on this war. The money has done some good and we have pulled many out of poverty and possibly changed the family tree of generations of people. Yet we truly havent solved the underlying issues that LBJ described in his address to the nation.

"lack of education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing, in a lack of decent communities in which to live."

Education is and should be at the top of that list and yet America seems to be failing Americans in this. We spend much more than most on Education and yet we are falling behind so many other countries. Every new President has a new vision of fixing this, yet most of what has been done has made it worse or made no impact. Why are we continuing to bring in from other countries (especially in technology) people with specialized skill sets because we cant supply enough, yet we have way too many people out of work. Why arent we re-training people in these skill sets? Why arent we pushing those skill sets in school? Why arent we investing in the future of technology?

I wish I had the answer but from what I can see, what we are doing today, is a big flop.

[Zarathustra]

As far as education goes, a large part of it is teachers' unions. We've all bought into this myth that teachers are somehow underappreciated, underpaid, and deserve more money regardless of their results. They are protected, literally, from their own mediocrity. They're virtually impossible to fire, and thus largely unaccountable. We've also gotten used to making excuses for students who underperform, based on their race and feelings of "social justice." When the problems aren't fixed in the schools, we just shift the blame on to corporations for not paying or hiring these underperformers based on their race/sex and feeling of "social justice." Blaming the people responsible is no longer politically correct, if they happen to be people who vote like you. So we must create boogimen among the political opposition, or our perceived political enemies. It's all rich people's fault, so the solution is taking more of their money. And those who want to fix the problems are attacked. [Just wait until the dissenting opinion chimes in on this thread and you'll see what I mean ... ] Our children are a political football in a political game.

America is turning into a coddled, protected, excused group of victims. We no longer pride ourselves on excellence and achievement (those things are cause for suspicion and higher taxes), but instead upon "fairness."

I say we've been at the poverty war for 50 years, and it hasn't worked, so how about trying something different? All we've done is teach people that the government is the solution to their problem. I don't think they're lazy, I think they've just been taught that they deserve help. It's something "owed" to them, because their status as underachievers has been raised to a level beyond reproach, something that is almost celebrated in this country. They're the championed underdog, the victim in our victimhood narratives. So why should they try harder? It's not their fault.

[Cail]

50 years of the War on Poverty has given us a permanent underclass who will continue to vote for their free stuff. It's created an environment that takes away your free stuff if you go out and get a job.

All of that money would have been better spent just giving people a $50,000/year salary, and that would have saved us trillions.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

There is also the mindset of poverty that has never been addressed. If you gave a family struggling with poverty $1 million, tax-free and no strings attached, then within 5 years they will once again be broke and struggling with poverty. Many of these people have internalized the notion that they are losers and because of this they will always be poor.

Yes, it is true to a certain extent that some people struggle with poverty because they do not want to improve their situation, either because of laziness, chemical addiction, or perceived lack of opportunity to improve their situation. I have said this many time now that the avenues for improving your life situation are out there and if you dedicate yourself to bettering your financial situation it will eventually happen; it may take 10 years or more but it will ultimately happen.

The War on Poverty was always doomed to fail just like the War on Drugs and War on Terror are failing/will fail. You cannot declare war on an idea or a state of existence and rationally hope to win.

Yes, it is good to help those who are less fortunate but putting them all on the government teat is not the way to do it.

[Avatar]

All of that money would have been better spent just giving people a $50,000/year salary, and that would have saved us trillions.

That sounds good to me, but I do agree with Hashi...poverty engenders a mindset that isn't removed by suddenly giving people money. It's not necessarily, (or even mostly) a matter of not wanting to do anything either, I think. It's engendered by an ingrained way of life, and patterns like that are very hard to break.

--A

[Hashi Lebwohl]

According to the Census, "poverty areas" are on the rise, especially in large Southern cities. Also on the rise is the trend of "exclusionary neighborhood zoning", a concept outlined in the article.

Exclusionary neighborhood zoning and suburban sprawl have led to an increase in the number of concentrated poverty areas, particularly in the South, according to an analysis of a recent U.S. Census Bureau report released Monday.

The report, based on data from the 2000 Census and figures collected from the American Community Survey from 2008-2012, revealed that in 2012 about 77 million people, roughly 25.7 percent of the U.S. population, lived in a poverty area — where more than one-fifth of residents earn an income below the poverty line of approximately $23,600 a year for a family of four.

That is a significant increase from the 2000 level of 45 million people or 18 percent of the population.

Paul Jargowsky, a professor of urban research and education at Rutgers University and one of the study analysts, said the migration of Americans toward poverty areas is primarily driven by two phenomena: exclusionary zoning and suburban sprawl.

Exclusionary zoning is when a suburban district sets a housing requirement that implicitly excludes lower-income families, like setting a minimum square footage of 3,000 feet. Families that cannot afford to purchase a house that large are thus unable to become members of that community. And more affluent people are also migrating into suburban areas, exacerbating the sprawl that leaves poor families in isolated communities.

"You have many, many politically independent suburbs that use exclusionary zoning to create housing only for families with higher incomes. As families with wealth move further and further out of urban areas you develop these very high-poverty neighborhoods where the schools begin to fail, you have high crime and low wages,” Jargowsky said.

The only way out of poverty, the only way which time has proven works, is education and/or job training combined with hard work and saving every penny you can.