Progress in Poverty 1963-72

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  • To what extent was the situation of Americans who lived in poverty improved in the years 1963-72? (20 marks)
    • Thesis: The situation of those who lived in poverty improved in the years 1963-72
      • The Great Society: "The War on Poverty" (1964-68)
        • Personally experienced poverty, most important aspect of his domestic program
        • Racially
          • The 'open housing law', 1968
            • 'integrated housing' instead of 'imprisoning the ***** in the slums'
            • Prohibited discrimination in the sale of housing - difficult to enforce with white opposition
          • 'I  think Johnson was the best we ever had'
          • Housing (urban decay) was a major cause of poverty
            • Housing and Urban Development (1965) HUD
            • Demonstration Cities Act (1966) - $1.2bn (underfunded, NY needed $6bn)
            • Omnibus Housing Act (1965) - ghetto housing via rent supplements
            • Omnibus Housing Act (1965) financed rent supplements, responded to continued racial discrimination with Fair Housing Act (1968)
        • Specifically poverty
          • Predicted $2 billion annual budget to end poverty - unrealistic
          • Economic Opportunity Act EOA (1964) established the OEO (Office of Economic Opportunity)
            • Anti poverty programs
            • Job Corps (training) centres
            • College work-study programmes
            • Programmes to teach illiterate adults/ basic education programmes
            • Youth corps
            • VISTA - assisted needy children/NI/migrants
            • AFDC (>4m receivers)
            • Headstart
            • Upward bound
          • Food Stamp Act (1964) extended Kennedy's food stamps
            • Also 35c raise in minimum wage
          • Medicare/Medicaid through the Social Security Act (1965)
            • Large proportion of poor were elderly -due to healthcare- previously smacked 'communism' (19m)
            • Gaps in coverage/ extremely expensive
        • Deserves credit for drawing attention to poverty/ efforts to improve the situation
        • Education
          • The HEA (1968) helped 11m students - esp low income/ poorly funded black colleges
      • New Federalism: Nixon's attack on the Great Society (1969-72)
        • Disparity in what Nixon said and did
        • wanted to save taxpayers' money by eliminating wasteful/inefficient programmes of the 'welfare mess'
          • 8.4m recieving AFDC in 1970
          • Also grew up in poverty- sympathy meant he spent he spent more on social programmes than Johnson
    • Antithesis: The situation of those who lived in poverty did not improve in the years 1963-72
      • Watts Riots, 1965 - 'a class revolt of underprivileged against privileged - the main issue is economic' - freedom was 'economic equality' to king - seen in his Chicago Campaign (1966)
        • Black Panther's ghetto programmes - breakfast clubs for poor black schoolchildren
      • Limitations of the 'war on poverty'
        • If it was so successful, then why wasn't he re-elected?
          • Vietnam War
            • America could afford both the Great Society and the war, but the War on Poverty became a casualty of the war on Vietnam
              • ... that's what killed the Great Society... it wasn't public opinion
          • Politically unrealistic promises
        • Criticism of excessive federal expenditure - cost more to put a 'ghetto' youth through Job Corps than Harvard
          • Criticism of under funding was generally disregarded
          • Increased dependency
          • little impact on American cities and even less on rural areas
        • Failed to eradicate poverty: 1/3 of non-whites lived below the poverty line (unemployment/ infant mortality rates were x2)
        • Weakness in planning/ implementing anti-poverty programmes
        • Confusion of which areas of the Great Society were 'anti-poverty programmes'
          • e.g. the ESEA (1965) - half of expenditure went to kids above poverty line
            • Example of Johnson ignoring how legislation worked/ difficulties of extending federal gov into schools
    • Introduction
      • All aspects of the Great Society were attempts to holistically implement the 'war on poverty' and piece together piecemeal/Republican acts that stagnated since the New Deal
      • "For the first time in all the history of the human race, a great nation... is willing to make a commitment to eradicate poverty among... the forgotten fifth'
      • 'If his reforms did not lead to a Great Society, they have at least made for a better society'
      • Relationship with congress
      • Status as master of the senate
      • Symbolic rather than substantive
        • 'So little I have done.. so much I have yet to do'
      • Both Johnson/ Nixon grew up in poverty

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