Cold War Poverty

Poverty during the 1900’s: IN 1900, the poorest 20% of income earners received 4.8% of the nation’s income; In 1900 they collected 4.6%. Because of this, the real incomes of the poor have risen tremendously this century. By our current definition of poverty, 56% of families in the U.S. were poor in 1900. By 1947 even after the Great Depression and World War II, the percentage of families in poverty had been cut more than half to 27%. By 1967 the percentage was 13. It was the free market, not government welfare that caused the poverty rate to fall from 56% to 13% in 1967. (Matthews)

Since 1964, President Johnson declared an “unconditional war against poverty” in his State of the Union. The Johnson Administration passed many reforms such as the Social

Coontz analyses both the weakness and strengths of the period and takes a ‘sarcastic’ approach. She is able to indicate the ideal time for the Americans pointing positive outlooks such as education, birthrate, economic expansion, jobs, family oriented culture and social environment. Her weakness about the myth of the 1950s includes teen pregnancies, poverty, marital problems, discrimination, racial and gender inequalities. She attacks the political system who continues states the goods of the 1950s but the politicians have not created and advanced the ideals and optimism of the 1950s. She categorically attacks the perceptions of people saying the 1950s was good even though when compared to the freedoms and engagements of these days, the 1950s’ thinkers are misplaced. The following quote summarizes her perspective, “This confidence that almost everyone could look forward to a better future stands in sharp contrast to how most contemporary Americans feel, and it explains why a period which many people were much worse off than today sometimes still looks like a better period for families than our own” (p. 40). Based on the historical and available information, Coontz argument may suffice because currently, nobody thinks about the future since the economic and social challenges are immense. The optimism is absent while challenges of discrimination, prejudice are fading. Hence, the article cleverly covers the

During the 1920’s, America was a prosperous nation going through the “Big Boom” and loving every second of it. However, this fortune didn’t last long, because with the 1930’s came a period of serious economic recession, a period called the Great Depression. By 1933, a quarter of the nation’s workers (about 40 million) were without jobs. The weekly income rate dropped from $24.76 per week in 1929 to $16.65 per week in 1933 (McElvaine, 8). After President Hoover failed to rectify the recession situation, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his term with the hopeful New Deal. In two installments, Roosevelt hoped to relieve short term suffering with the first, and redistribution of money amongst the poor with the second. Throughout these years of the

In 1964 President Kennedy started the process of making a substantial effort to eradicate poverty when he received a memo showing that the number of families that were poor at that time (which was below the $3000 threshold) would remain poor even with full-time work if changes were not made (Haveman, R ( 1 ), Blank, R ( 2 ), Moffitt, R ( 3 ), Smeeding, T ( 4 ), & Wallace, G ( 5 ), 2015). He also directed that antipoverty measures be included in the 1964 legislation when awareness of the plight of more than 40% of blacks living in poverty was made (Haveman, R ( 1 ) et al., 2015). After his untimely assassination President Johnson moved the plan forward signing the Economic Opportunity Bill into law in 1964 (Haveman, R ( 1 ) et al., 2015). A total of $800 million (equivalent to $6 billion in today’s dollars) was appropriated to the Executive agency Johnson created to address and oversee the programs that were to be used to combat poverty (Haveman, R ( 1 ) et al., 2015). Many of the programs had existed prior to 1964 but these efforts were targeted to “provide direct services to the poor, promote the development of human capital and stimulate social and community change.” (Haveman, R ( 1 ) et al., 2015) Medicaid was also created to provide for the poor and the farm community helped to expand the Food Stamp program (which also helped address concerns about food surplus), and Housing subsidy was expanded as well and most, if not all, of these programs continue in some form

The cause for the relocation of political socialization was consistent with Barry Goldwater’s beliefs expressed in The Conscience of a Conservative. In this reading Goldwater suggest that a man’s development can not be supported by any extrinsic influencer and that every man is responsible for their own development. The social security act of 1935 was a program that was apart of the new deal to give aid to the unemployed, the disabled, poor families, the elderly. This is the antithesis of the conservative belief of Goldwater and bootstrap approach held by Henry Ford where he claims that self help is the best way to overcome unemployment. This act completely changed the role of the federal government in the lives of its constituents. Prior to the New Deal, the great depression, the people could not look to their government to

President Kennedy and his successor, President Johnson, both wished for a more prosperous country, yet took varying approaches to fixing the problems that plagued their nation. President Kennedy said “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” demonstrating President Kennedy’s wish for the people to contribute to their country, not wanting to depend on their government for basic needs. President Johnson, on the other hand, promoted a set of initiatives similar to the New Deal, attempting to wage a “war on poverty,” which he called the “Great Society.” While he didn’t deal with the ongoing Vietnam War very effectively, the minority protections- while not received well- and the war on poverty produced

Few Americans in the first months of 1929 saw any reason to question the strength and stability of the nation's economy. Most agreed with their new president that the booming prosperity of the years just past would not only continue but increase, and that dramatic social progress would follow in its wake. "We in America today," Herbert Hoover had proclaimed in August 1928, "are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us."1

Poverty rates dropped to the lowest it had ever been in the United States. What used to be the poverty rate of 17.3% in 1958 had significantly dropped to 11.1% in 1965 after the initiation of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “war on poverty” acts and programs (Boundless). The programs that Johnson had implemented caused the standard of living to rise in the areas of impoverished US citizens. Elderly people as well as low-income families could now afford healthcare. Children were given access to education through the government funding of public schools, which paved the way for more students to be able to move on to higher educations. School funding and volunteer programs were put in place to combat the low literacy rates in underprivileged areas, and training programs were made available to help those who were unemployed gain skills and knowledge that would help them secure jobs. Families with low incomes were now able to afford housing with government funds being allocated to build houses in the low-income areas. Even the goods that were being bought had increased in quality because of acts that raised the standard of production of consumer goods (ushistory.org). Although the Johnson administration had very strong critics of the “war on poverty” their actions generated lasting impacts on the society that is seen

In the Colonial Era, welfare was virtually non-existent, except between neighbors and relatives. The Early Industrial Era like the Colonial Era, viewed the poor as nugatory. In 1929, the Gret Depression changed the view of the poor and poverty was officially declared a social problem. Shortly thereafter, President Roosevelt initiated reforms to assist the poor. President Johnson additionally aided in the fight against poverty in the 1960's. However, twenty years later the Federal Government with the help of the Regan Administration, began slashing the very programs which were created to help the poor. Then, with the changes in welfare made by President Clinton, the Federal Government programs became state level programs. This transformation has not curtailed poverty as some would like us to believe. Also, the welfare reform typifies a Conservative stance, since it views Federal welfare programs that help the poor as encouraging

During President Johnson's term in office from 1964 to 1968, Johnson had declared a war on poverty. This is made evident when Johnson attempts to attack poverty at its roots. He states,

Established by Karl Marx, class-conflict theory focuses on the class struggle and change in the social class. The class-conflict theory sounds the most reasonable to me, I believe the role of social class made a huge impact on the Cold War. Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin both have different views towards class struggle. Class-conflict was usually mentioned between socialists, who would refer to a class and relate it to the means of production. The means of production also made a huge impact towards the social class. However, the resources in factories and other means of production cause many conflicts between the classes. The social order between each state has dominance over another class. The center of attention between the conflicts mainly

Welfare has been a safety net for many Americans, when the alternative for them is going without food and shelter. Over the years, the government has provided income for the unemployed, food assistance for the hungry, and health care for the poor. The federal government in the nineteenth century started to provide minimal benefits for the poor. During the twentieth century the United States federal government established a more substantial welfare system to help Americans when they most needed it. In 1996, welfare reform occurred under President Bill Clinton and it significantly changed the structure of welfare. Social Security has gone through significant change from FDR’s signing of the program into law to President George W. Bush’s

The decaying state of the American economy and the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s brought about the necessity for the United States to reconsider its attitudes and examine the long term effects of its policies concerning wide-scale socioeconomic problems that were constantly growing bigger. The Great Depression led to the creation of many new and innovative government policies and programs, along with revisions to older economic systems. However, these cost the government billions of dollars in a country that had consistently been stretching the gap between the rich and poor. This continued as the Great Depression began to change everything people had grown old knowing,

Ronald Reagan once said, “We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won.” I read the book, Dancing in the dark by Morris Dickstein. This book was about the great depression, and the impacts it had on American life. The traditional thought of poverty, people dying of hunger and people lying in the roads, has been erased. America has abolished poverty by the traditional standards but the thought of poverty and what it is has changed. In America we consider poverty to be spending all your money on bills, so you have no money left for food to feed your family. We consider poverty to be just being poor. One-Third of our population makes less than $38,000. This is not enough to be able to be above the poverty line. Anything below this