War on Poverty

Matthews, Dylan. "Everything You Need to Know about the War on Poverty." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 8 Jan. 2014. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.

In the article “Everything you need to know about the war on poverty” by Dylan Matthews, he gives you the overall basic information you should know on this topic, and eventually goes on to the specific details in this article. War on Poverty happened 52 years ago with President Lyndon Johnson leading it, the main point was to relive people of poverty and to prevent it from happing again. This effort was mainly centered around four bills, The Social Security Amendments of 1965, The Food Stamp Act of 1964, The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, and finally The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The main thing that caused the start of war on poverty was the publication “The Other America,” by Michael Harrington, through this piece it exhibited that poverty was a bigger deal than anyone expected. Many of the programs including Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, Head Start, Job Corps, Vista and Title 1 are still big contenders that help people on a daily basis. Before the government gets involved poverty is at 26% but when the government does get involved it cuts down to 16% which is not a ginormous difference but it does make a difference. Therefor in the end, the war on poverty helped a multitude of people by providing many programs, to help them get back on their feet, but unfortunately it is still a big factor in our society.