{"id":63181,"date":"2026-03-15T13:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T17:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=63181"},"modified":"2026-03-15T13:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T17:30:12","slug":"stating-the-obvious-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=63181","title":{"rendered":"Stating The Obvious"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, The Daily Signal<\/a> posted an article about the results of the War on Poverty. The results have not been what the stated goals were, although they may reflect a different agenda than the one stated.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

America\u2019s \u201cWar on Poverty,\u201d launched by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, has expanded into a vast array of federal social welfare programs that today exceed $1 trillion per year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Upon signing the Economic Opportunity Act, Johnson stated<\/a>: \u201cThis is not in any sense a cynical proposal to exploit the poor with a promise of a handout,\u201d but rather a means to \u201chelp our people find their footing for a long climb toward a better way of life.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

While poverty has declined significantly over the past half-century, however, recent reports indicate that these programs simultaneously reduced the share of private income for America\u2019s poorest, locking them into long-term dependency and limiting their ability to move up into the middle class.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A recent study<\/a> by economists Kevin Corinth and Richard Burkhauser, which analyzed poverty rates before and after America embarked on the War on Poverty, concluded that, while poverty decreased substantially since 1964, this was achieved largely by welfare supplanting \u201cmarket\u201d income such as wages, investments, and profits. In addition, before the 1960s, market income had succeeded in reducing poverty at similar rates to what the War on Poverty achieved.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOur new research shows that the United States made strong progress in reducing poverty during the quarter century before the War on Poverty began, and that this progress was entirely accounted for by increases in market income, not government transfers,\u201d Corinth told The Daily Signal. \u201cIn other words, there was a lot of benefit and not much cost during this earlier period.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before the War on Poverty, poverty reduction was achieved across racial groups. Economist Thomas Sowell<\/a> wrote in 2004 that the poverty rate among black families fell from 87% in 1940 to 47% in 1960, without government assistance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article notes:<\/p>\n

A January report<\/a> by the Congressional Budget Office found that, for the poorest 20% of Americans, government payments increased from 26% of total income in 1979 to 42% in 2022. And as welfare programs expanded, market income for America\u2019s poorest declined as a share of total income. Whereas in 1979, welfare payments were only about half the amount of private income sources for the lowest quintile, the two income sources were roughly equal by 2022.<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to a February report<\/a> in The Daily Economy by analyst Tyler Turman, based on this Congressional Budget Office data, \u201cdespite historically unprecedented economic gains for low-income Americans, more of them are dependent on government assistance than at any point in the country\u2019s history.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article concludes with a statement that probably describes the actual goal of the War on Poverty:<\/p>\n

If the goal of the War on Poverty was to boost Americans\u2019 self-sufficiency, it appears to have fallen short. What it has<\/em> achieved, rather, is a costly expansion of government, long-term dependency for the poor, and a perennial voting bloc for politicians who feed the addiction.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the results of the War on Poverty. The results have not been what the stated goals were, although they may reflect a different agenda than the one stated. The article reports: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10974,19228,9416,10397,4505],"class_list":["post-63181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-congressional-budget-office-cbo","tag-economic-opportunity-act","tag-president-lyndon-johnson","tag-the-daily-signal","tag-war-on-poverty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63182,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63181\/revisions\/63182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}