Editing Great Society (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Pens used to sign civil rights legislation by LBJ. LBJ Library, Austin, Texas.jpg|thumb|The pens used by President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] to sign Great Society legislation]]
Interpretations of the War on Poverty remain controversial. The Office of Economic Opportunity was dismantled by the [[Richard Nixon|Nixon]] and [[Gerald Ford|Ford]] administrations, largely by transferring poverty programs to other government departments.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bailey |first1=Martha J. |last2=Duquette |first2=Nicolas J. |title=How Johnson Fought the War on Poverty: The Economics and Politics of Funding at the Office of Economic Opportunity |journal=The Journal of Economic History |date=June 2014 |volume=74 |issue=2 |pages=351–388 |doi=10.1017/s0022050714000291 |pmid=25525279 |pmc=4266933 }}</ref> Funding for many of these programs was further cut in President [[Ronald Reagan]]'s [[Gramm-Latta Budget]] in 1981.{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}}

[[Alan Brinkley]] has suggested that "the gap between the expansive intentions of the War on Poverty and its relatively modest achievements fueled later conservative arguments that government is not an appropriate vehicle for solving social problems."<ref name="Brinkley">Alan Brinkley, "Great Society" in ''The Reader's Companion to American History'', Eric Foner and John Arthur Garraty eds., {{ISBN|0-395-51372-3}}, Houghton Mifflin Books, p. 472</ref> One of Johnson's aides, [[Joseph A. Califano Jr.]], has countered that "from 1963 when [[Lyndon Johnson]] took office until 1970 as the impact of his Great Society programs were felt, the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century."<ref name="califano" />

In the long run, statistical analysis shows that the Official Poverty Rate fell from 19.5 percent in 1963 to 12.3 percent in 2017. However, using a broader definition that includes cash income, taxes, and major in-kind transfers and inflation rates, the  "Full-income Poverty Rate" based on President Johnson's standards fell from 19.5 percent to 2.3 percent over that period.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Burkhauser |first1=Richard V. |last2=Corinth |first2=Kevin |last3=Elwell |first3=James |last4=Larrimore |first4=Jeff |title=Evaluating the Success of President Johnson's War on Poverty: Revisiting the Historical Record Using a Full-Income Poverty Measure |publisher=American Enterprise Institute |date=December 2019 |id={{Gale|A612580996}} |url=https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Burkhauser-Corinth-Elwell-Larrimore-President-Johnson-War-on-Poverty-WP-1.pdf |ssrn=3877009 |doi=10.3386/w26532 |s2cid=201338597 }}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=This graph shows the U.S. poverty rate from 1960 through 2012. President Lyndon Johnsons 'war on... |encyclopedia=Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History |editor1-first=Thomas |editor1-last=Riggs |edition=2nd |volume=1 |publisher=Gale |date=2015 |series=Gale in Context: Biography |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/PC3611087112/GPS?u=wikipedia&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=dc465ff1 }}</ref>

The percentage of African Americans below the poverty line dropped from 55 percent in 1960 to 27 percent in 1968.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=372 |title=The Great Society and the Drive for Black Equality |access-date=May 13, 2009 |last=Mintz |first=S |year=2007 | work=Digital History |publisher=[[University of Houston]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090116143323/http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=372 |archive-date=January 16, 2009 }}</ref> From 1964 to 1967, federal expenditures on education rose from $4&nbsp;billion to $12&nbsp;billion, while spending on health rose from $5&nbsp;billion to $16&nbsp;billion. By that time, the federal government was spending $4,000 per annum on each poor family of four, four times as much as in 1961.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Woods |first1=Randall |title=LBJ: Architect of American Ambition |date=2007 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-4165-9331-7 }}{{page needed|date=April 2023}}</ref>

According to economists like [[Thomas Sowell]], Johnson's Great Society policies led to the dismantling of the Black nuclear family.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Moynihan |first1=Daniel |title=How the Great Society "destroyed the American family" |journal=The Public Interest |date=1992 |pages=53–64 |url=https://www.nationalaffairs.com/public_interest/detail/how-the-great-society-destroyed-the-american-family |access-date=August 15, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Goeglein |first1=Timothy |title=What has the Great Society Wrought Fifty Years Later? Marriage, Family and Poverty |date=February 28, 2017 |url=https://hc.edu/news-and-events/2017/02/28/great-society-wrought-fifty-years-later-marriage-family-poverty/ |publisher=Houston Christian University |access-date=August 15, 2024}}</ref> The result of strikingly higher rates of single motherhood has led to lower outcomes in Black children across the board.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kalahar |first1=Dean |title=The Decline of the African-American family |url=https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/03/the_decline_of_the_africanamerican_family.html |website=American Thinker |access-date=August 15, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rowe |first1=Ian |title=Agency |date=2022 |publisher=Templeton Press |location=West Conshohocken, PA |isbn=978-1-59947-583-7}}</ref>