Many of those programs have become part of the fabric of American society. They include Medicare, which pays hospitalization and physician costs for the elderly. There is Medicaid, the joint federal-state program that provides health care for low-income Americans and long-term nursing care for seniors.
The value of such programs remains much-contested in the partisan tug-of-war of Washington politics. But in an America still enthralled with the exploration of space and the possibilities of shared commitment, there was a belief in the early 1960s of a government that could end poverty.
By 1965 Congress had created Head Start, which has provided pre-school for millions of low-income children; and expanded Food Stamps, which Johnson and lawmakers transformed from a small pilot program into a broad-based system that feeds millions of poor people.
Johnson’s speech, coming just seven weeks after the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, launched a decade-long bipartisan effort to use the power of the federal government to lift millions of people from poverty.
Republicans Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford not only fully funded many of the anti-poverty programs, they expanded them with Supplemental Social Security for the disabled, automatic cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients, and the earned income tax credit for the working poor.
Although President Ronald Reagan in 1988 quipped that “some years ago, the federal government declared war on poverty and poverty won,’’ the percentage of Americans living in poverty plunged from 22.4 percent in 1959 to 11 percent in 1973.
Even today in the aftermath of the worst recession since the Great Depression, the nation’s poverty rate is 15 percent. Medicare and expansion of Social Security have nearly eradicated poverty among the elderly.
“It wasn’t a big waste of money and it wasn’t lost,’’ said Joseph Califano, a White House adviser to Johnson who later served as secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under President Jimmy Carter. “Just imagine where people would be without Food Stamps. We would be in terrible shape.’’
“He (Johnson) was totally focused on poverty and civil rights and they really were in his DNA,’’ Califano said. “These are things he saw in Texas. When elected to Congress in 1938, he came from the county which had no running water and no electricity and he was very aware of it.’’
At a conference last week in Washington, Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, eldest daughter of President Johnson, said that “we made a difference. We made a difference because we recognized that there were so many people who couldn’t make it without the education, who were discriminated against because of their color, (and) they didn’t get enough food to eat.’’
Staggering price tag
Yet conservatives argue that while Johnson’s war helped reduce poverty or allow poor people to survive, they contend that eradicating poverty requires revolutionary changes — opposed by many Democrats — in the way young Americans are educated to prepare them for jobs in the modern economy or to start their own companies.
‘It hasn’t been won,’’ said Arthur Brooks, president of the conservative leaning American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “We have a bigger percentage of Americans that need Food Stamps than ever before.’’
“The unemployment rate for the most vulnerable – African American teenagers – is 38 percent,’’ Brooks said. “The war was not to maintain people in poverty, and the only way get people off poverty is to increase their ability to support themselves and earn their success.’’
The price tag for federal anti-poverty programs is staggering. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that in 2012, the federal government spent $588 billion on Medicaid, SSI, child nutrition, Pell Grants and the refundable portions of the earned income tax credit – programs targeted at low-income people.
Defenders of the anti-poverty effort acknowledge that the nation has yet to reach Johnson’s goal of a war that “the richest nation on Earth can afford to win.’’ Poverty, in particular among African-Americans, remains stubbornly high.
But many experts say what the effort accomplished is more nuanced than broad declarations of victory or defeat.
“Critics are right – the War on Poverty has been expensive,’’ said Martha Bailey, professor of economics at the University of Michigan. “But it’s wrong to call it a failure.” Sh added that poverty rates today “would’ve been higher than they were in 1964 without the War on Poverty.”
Phil Cole, executive director of the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies, agreed, saying “we’ve really helped seniors and we’ve done a lot with Head Start to prepare children for school but there is much left you do.’’
‘I thank the Lord it’s there’
There are tangible examples of people who have survived because of Johnson’s war. Recovered from shoulder surgery, Bates, 77, of Columbus, smiled, shook her head, and said she would “be with the rest living in poverty’’ without Medicare and Social Security, the latter championed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935.
Born during the Great Depression and raised in poverty on a farm with her three sisters and brother, Bates recalled “one time there were only four pieces of bread and dad told my mom to give them to the children. He worked so hard. You know he had to be hungry.”
While raising her own family, Bates worked factory and office jobs, earning enough to buy a home. But she never could set aside much for retirement.
Stumbo, of suburban Columbus, will likely need government assistance the rest of his life. Supplemental Security Income, Social Security, Food Stamps and a federal housing subsidy allow him to live on his own.
“I hate to think about how much the government is paying for just him but I thank the Lord it’s there,” said his mother, Cheryl Hunter, 62. “He’d be lost without it. He’d either be with us or on the street.”
Newly divorced and unable to leave her house because of agoraphobic panic and anxiety, Edwards, a former dental office manager, said it took years to recover and she’s grateful Food Stamps were available when she needed help.
“I remember the tough times and it still makes me cry,” said Edwards, 57, of Columbus, who is remarried and manages the Westside Lutheran Social Services food pantry where she went for help. “But now, I say we lived through it, we’re all happy, and we have each other.”
Jessica Wehrman of the Washington Bureau contributed to this report.
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