Everything you need to know about
the war on poverty
Dylan Matthews
Dylan Matthews explains the war on poverty and what programs
were included. The Social Security Amendments of 1965, which created Medicare
and Medicaid and also expanded Social Security benefits for retirees, widows,
the disabled and college-aged students, financed by an increase in the payroll
tax cap and rates. The Food Stamp Act of 1964, which made the food stamps
program, then only a pilot, permanent. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964,
which established the Job Corps, the VISTA program, the federal work-study
program and a number of other initiatives. It also established the Office of
Economic Opportunity, the arm of the White House responsible for
implementing the war on poverty and which created the Head Start program in the
process. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, signed into law in 1965,
which established the Title I program subsidizing school districts with a large
share of impoverished students, among other provisions. ESEA has since been
reauthorized, most recently in the No Child Left behind Act. By introducing
each of these programs, the government successfully brought down poverty by “10%”.
Matthews says that we could do so many more things. We could expand existing
working programs like Social Security, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the child
tax credit and food stamps. We could be investing in education, such as by
scaling up successful pre-K pilots, or by expanding high-performing charter
schools and having traditional public schools adopt their approaches. We could raise
the minimum wage, which all researchers find reduces poverty.
In the article “Everything You Need to Know about the War on Poverty” Matthews says that Lyndon B. Johnson helped fix the problems of poverty. Lyndon set up some proposals that are still being used today. These include The Social Security Amendments of 1965, The Food Stamp Act of 1964, The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, The Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Matthews also brings up the fact that government involvement did improve things “A recent study from economists at Columbia broke down changes in poverty before and after the government gets involved in the form of taxes and transfers, and found that, when you take government intervention into account, poverty is down considerably from 1967 to 2012, from 26 percent to 16 percent.” (Matthews). This shows that everything Johnson did, made an effect to poverty rate and their income. Matthews then goes on about how we can still improve the fight for poverty by raising minimum wage, the earned income tax credit, and we could improve anti-poverty programs like social security… etc.
ReplyDeleteMatthews, Dylan. "Everything You Need to Know about the War on Poverty." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 8 Jan. 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.
MLA Cited:
ReplyDeleteMatthews, Dylan. " Everything You Need to Know about the War on Poverty." The Washington Post. (Italicizes) N.p., 8 Jan. 2014.
In an article written on The Washington Post by Dylan Matthews called ,"Everything you need to know about the war on poverty" Matthews goes in extensive detail about what exactly the war on poverty is and how the U.S. Government has played into action to stop poverty in the U.S. . Matthews goes into talk about the relentless amounts of foundations that the Lyndon Johnson cabinet put into place such as the Social Security amendment gone into place in 1965, allowing benefits to retirees, widowed and disabled people. As well as the Food Stamp Act 1965 to allow more money to those in need of basic food necessities and the Medicare and Medicaid Act that allowed proper medical assistance to the elderly and infant costs. He explains that precisely and it's as far and they have kept recorded documents, that precisely in 1965 is when President Lyndon Johnson declared the war on poverty. Further explaining that it wasn't until post-war that journalist and other writers started to talk about the struggle to defeat poverty in Manhattan, and all around the U.S , people were struggling to get out of poverty. It wasn't until more of these pieces started to get published that, the public along with greater politicians started to advocate for a change and realized that poverty in the U.S. was becoming a great issue that needed to be addressed. Considering all the statistics and factual dates that were put into this article is shows how well the author Dylan Matthews put great effort and research into this article so as the audience and the rest of the public could get a greater and clearer understanding. He uses extensive research and knowledge to build the trust of his public viewers.