The War on Poverty did not increase self-sufficiency
It’s been 50 years now since the federal government launched its “War on Poverty.” But the numbers just released by the Census Bureausuggest we’re in a losing battle.
The poverty rate now stands at 14.5 percent. That’s a drop from the previous rate of 15 percent. But don’t celebrate too quickly. The new rate is almost exactly the poverty rate we had in 1967, only three years after President Lyndon Johnson announced his war.
To put it in further perspective: The poverty rate in 1950 was 32.2 percent. It dropped steadily throughout the ‘50s, and had been nearly cut in half before the War on Poverty began. After that, the rate declined slightly, then leveled out.
That was $22 trillion ago. That’s right, trillion with a “t.” A 22 with 12 zeros behind it. To understand how much that is, if you laid a trillion $1 bills end to end, they would reach the sun. Now multiply that by 22. That’s enough for 11 round trips.
In short, it’s a lot of money. Yet the poverty rate is essentially the same as it was 50 years ago.
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3 comments:
Yup keep cheering. Our government is run by evil crooks. Take that idea and apply it to every government agency set up to fix something. Fact is they don't fix crap, but we get generations of debt, while the buddy system crowd get rich
Do nothing, get paid---what better deal is out there? Disgusting
To turn a phrase, "Give it away and they will come."
It's the same with all aspects of social welfare, which were supposed to be a temporary crutch, not a permanent recliner. It's turned into a political vote-getting bargaining chip, not what it was intended to be by its authors.
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