In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty. Sadly, it’s a war we’re still fighting, and a war we’ve always been losing.

Americans love to declare warfare on nonfigurative ideas . The War on Christmas , the War on Drugs and , declare on Jan. 8 , 1964 , the War on Poverty . Much like these other “ war , ” President Lyndon B. Johnson ’s War on Poverty was , by and large , a failure .

In 1964 , poorness was n’t a Modern trouble , but it was a new recognize and newly contextualized job afterthe first numbers on impoverishment came out in 1959 .

During Johnson ’s 1964 State of the Union Address , he place out his offence against impoverishment to not only “ relieve the symptom of poverty , but to cure it and , above all , to foreclose it . ” Expansion in government - funded Department of Education and healthcare were foundations of the programme – foundations that can still be seen today in program such asHead Start , theTRIO college chance program , Medicare , and Medicaid .

Unfortunately for the country and for Johnson ’s programme , the War on Poverty was prohibitively expensive . At least , it was prohibitively expensive while the nation made the war in Vietnam the top anteriority in the 1960s and 1970s . The war on poverty did n’t start roll again after the conclusion of the war in Vietnam , either , with successive president cutting down financial backing for Johnson ’s computer programme in an effort to dismantle what they call the eudaimonia state .

Today,80 percent of the populationdivvies up a petty less than half of the total income . We are a nation of rich person and have - nots . Most notable are the 45 million have - nots who hang under the poverty line–$23,850 annual income for a household of four , $ 15,730 for a duet , and $ 11,670 for an individual : that ’s how around 15 percentage of the entire universe experience . And 33 percent of the population–105 million hoi polloi – inhabit in tight propinquity to the poverty job with incomes less than double the impoverishment threshold .

The poverty grade in 1964 when LBJ proclaimed war:19 percent .

In this war , all of America is losing .