THE WAR ON POVERTY AT 50

 

January 8 marked the 50^thanniversary of America’s war on poverty. While nearly 50 million Americans, including 13 million children, lived below the poverty line for some time in 2012, there is no doubt that the war has had its successes, particularly in lifting seniors out of poverty.  Today’s safety net programs—SNAP, Medicaid, EITC—kept 41 million people, including 9 million children, out of poverty in 2012 and yield lasting gains in children’s later health and education.

Several cultural factors also helped to reduce poverty during the past 50 years:

·    More adults completed high school and college. The share of adults completing high school rose from 56 to 88%. 

·    Families shrank. In 1964 nearly 40% of families had 3 or more children, in 2012 only 20% of families were that large.

·    More adult women became workers. Employment among adult women rose from 42% in 1964 to 64% in 2012. 

·    The safety net became stronger. In 1967 only 4% of people with incomes below the poverty line before counting government benefits (and before subtracting income and payroll taxes) had incomes above the poverty line after counting that assistance and taking taxes into account.  In 2012, by contrast, the safety net kept 44% of such individuals out of poverty.

But several social and economic factors make it nearly impossible for millions of Americans to escape poverty: 

·    Rising income inequality resulted in less of the benefits of economic growth going to those at the bottom.  Between 1964 and 2012, the share of national income going to the top 1% of households doubled, from 11 to 22%.   If the benefits of economic growth had been more widely shared, poverty would be lower.

·    Less-skilled men face an increasingly tough labor market.  Over the period, the share of adult men with a job fell from 87 to 74%, with men with a high school diploma or less hit hardest.  And, between 1973 and 2012, the share of men who earned below-poverty wages despite working year-round rose from 10 to 14%.

·    While parents had fewer children, the share of families with children headed by a single parent grew from 11% in 1964 to 35% in 2012; single-parent families have much higher poverty rates, both because there is only one parent in the home who can work and because these parents tend to have less education and poorer employment prospects. 

Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1/7/14, War on Poverty