Abstract
In his 1964 State of the Union address, President Lyndon Johnson made a bold announcement: “This administration, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America . . . . It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won.”
At the time this war was launched, there was reason for optimism. The U.S. economy was humming and standards of living were rising for most Americans. Indeed, poverty fell sharply through the 1960s, fueling a sense of economic progress. In 1971, Robert Lampman, who had been a key economic adviser to President Lyndon Johnson on antipoverty initiatives, predicted that poverty would be eradicated by 1980.
Unfortunately, this did not come to pass. During the 1970s and 1980s, economic growth slowed and income inequality grew. Sharp recessions in those decades, along with growing global economic competition, soured the mood of many Americans. Deindustrialization, which had been depopulating a number of cities in the Northeast and Midwest since 1960, continued unabated and sapped the vitality of large urban centers such as Detroit, Buffalo, and Cleveland. Poverty among some groups, such as African Americans, remained high in absolute terms. Believing that government programs did little to reduce poverty, Ronald Reagan quipped in 1988, “My friends, some years ago the federal government declared war on poverty—and poverty won.”
Was Reagan right? Given the political rhetoric from small-government supporters, the proof is in: large government programs failed to reduce poverty and instead increased dependency and family decay. They point to the fact that the U.S. poverty rate hasn’t declined since the early 1970s. In fact, the poverty rate in 2014, at 14.8 percent, was significantly higher than the poverty rate in 1973, 11.1 percent.
In this context, Legacies of the War on Poverty provides a much-needed careful assessment of the major programs that accompanied the War on Poverty. The book is divided into three parts. The first examines programs that attempted to increase human capital, employment, and earnings, such Head Start, Title 1 K-12 educational programs, and workforce development programs. The second analyzes programs designed to raise incomes and living standards, such as food stamps (now SNAP), the Earned Income Tax Credit, social security expansions for the elderly, and housing policies. The final part examines programs for improving access to medical care, such as Medicare and Medicaid.
The editors, Martha Bailey and Sheldon Danziger, have brought together an accomplished group of contributors (all economists), including highly-respected senior scholars and productive earlier-career faculty. Sheldon Danziger himself has been one of the most prolific researchers of poverty and policy, having written or edited influential volumes such as Fighting Poverty (1986), Confronting Poverty (1993), America Unequal (1995), Understanding Poverty (2002), and Changing Poverty, Changing Policies (2009).
The introductory chapter of the current volume, penned by Bailey and Danziger, makes a few key points about why simple evaluations about the “failure” of the War on Poverty are misplaced. First, the official poverty measure masks the effect of many programs in reducing poverty, as programs today are less likely to deliver cash benefits that are counted in official poverty statistics and more likely to include non-cash or near-cash benefits, such as in the form of health and housing subsidies and the Earned Income Tax Credit, that are not. Second, we have waged this war in the face of very stiff economic winds since the early 1970s. Globalization and deindustrialization eliminated many relatively well-paying jobs for people with modest levels of education. As a result, wage inequality has risen, making it more difficult to combat poverty. Third, there have been some countervailing demographic and institutional changes which have worked against attempts to reduce poverty, such as the growth in incarceration, the rise in nonmarital childbearing, and the growth of female-headed households. Bailey and Danziger further argue that the increase in single parenthood cannot be attributed to Great Society programs, as research has found that the effects of programs on marriage are small.
Bailey and Danziger conclude, based on the evidence reviewed in the book chapters, that “many of the era’s programs and policies significantly reduced poverty and increased opportunities, even if they were not large enough to offset the increases in poverty due to other economic and demographic changes” (p.25). They further assert that one underappreciated aspect of the War on Poverty was the use of federal government funds to foster racial integration and reduce racial inequality in opportunities in schools, the labor market, and housing. In short, while the War on Poverty promised more than it could deliver, it did end up doing much to reduce hardship and increase opportunities for many Americans.
The individual chapters of the book are generally balanced and persuasive. They often provide much-needed historical context, an overview of the stated goals of specific programs, the challenges with evaluating them, and the successes and failures of individual programs. Challenges with evaluation, for example, often revolve around the fact that there is no perfect “control” group with which to compare outcomes, as these were not natural experiments. Some of the outcomes of interest also often don’t occur for many years, such as with the Head Start program. Head Start itself was originally deemed a failure for not producing lasting increases in test scores, but it nevertheless increased educational attainment and college attendance later on. Sometimes the results of other programs, such as workforce development efforts, were rather small and did not greatly reduce poverty but nevertheless produced some small positive outcomes and were cost-effective.
If I could have wished for more from this volume, it would be more discussion of issues that are still subject to considerable political debate. For one, while the book notes that these policies do not appear to have increased dependency much, a more sustained and systematic engagement with this issue would have been helpful. Similarly, some commentators today are concerned that government spending can inhibit long-term economic growth. Others counter that certain kinds of government spending can do much to spur investment and are thus critical for such growth. What lessons does the War on Poverty offer for this debate?
These issues aside, the book provides an excellent set of analyses of the effects of the major anti-poverty policies of the War on Poverty. This is an essential volume for any scholar of poverty and policy and an excellent one for those who wish to know more about the long-term effects of this major government effort. As the volume notes, “The War on Poverty initiated a new era of direct federal involvement in schools, hospitals, labor markets, and neighborhoods. This involvement engendered considerable controversy but has left a large footprint on the conceptualization, design, and implementation of antipoverty, social, and health policies; American politics; racial inequalities; and social science research” (p.3). The War on Poverty thus leaves behind a momentous legacy, and it is critical that we have a complete measure of it to better inform current political debates.