Today marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s declaration of a War on Poverty. It’s a fight that’s far from over, as many families in our city and across the nation struggle to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Yet there has been tremendous progress in reducing poverty, particularly as a result of programs that provide health care, nutrition, and financial incentives to work. These safety net programs now reduce poverty by almost half. 
It’s hard to believe that in the early 1960s, before the War on Poverty was declared, Medicare, Medicaid and Head Start didn’t exist. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP (more commonly known as food stamps) was just a pilot program, and the federal government hadn’t invested much in public education. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), now one of the most effective anti-poverty programs, wasn’t created until the 1970s and didn’t become substantial until a decade later
The current federal poverty measure doesn’t show the benefits of many of these safety net changes ‘ and so officially poverty doesn’t appear to have fallen much in the last 50 years. That’s because the current measure doesn’t take into account non-cash, in-kind assistance, like SNAP benefits, or tax-based assistance like the EITC. However, a more comprehensive measure of poverty that includes these benefits shows that poverty fell from 26 percent in 1967 to 16 percent in 2012. That is an amazing accomplishment. (See Figure 1, from CBPP.)
The more comprehensive measure of poverty also shows how effective programs such as SNAP and the EITC are at keeping people out of poverty. The current basket of programs known as the “safety net” cut the poverty rate nearly in half in 2012–keeping 41 million people, including 9 million children out of poverty, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And new research shows that while safety net programs kept just four percent of people out of poverty in 1967, today these programs keep 44 percent of people out of poverty.
So after 50 years is there more to do on poverty? Yes, of course. In DC, the recently enacted higher minimum wage should help move many families above the poverty line, particularly for those who have full-time year, round work. Beyond that, the lesson of the past 50 years is that expanding programs like the EITC, housing assistance, and cash benefits for families with children will help a lot, too (see Figure 2, from CBPP).
DCFPI’s parent organization, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, has done a vast amount of research on the impact of the war on poverty 50 years later. Check out their full analysis, including several chartbooks (many of which include charts that appear here!) highlighting the progress that has been made, here.
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