oor according to the U.S. census. Why the Increase in Spending? The revolution began, as so many revolutions begin, with reform. President John F. Kennedy wanted the federal welfare effort to be a force for social progress. In his welfare message to Congress in 1962, he wrote: “The goals for our public welfare program must be positive and constructive ... (programs| must stress the integrity and preservation of the family unit. It must contribute to the attack on dependency, juvenile delinquency, family breakdown, illegitimacy, ill health, and disability. I
In 1968, as Lyndon Johnson left office, 13% of Americans were poor, according to the official definition. During the next 12 years, in constant dollars, federal spending on all social welfare programs quadrupled. Yet, in 1980, 13% of Americans were still poor according to the U.S. census. Why the Increase in Spending?
The revolution began, as so many revolutions begin, with reform. President John F. Kennedy wanted the federal welfare effort to be a force for social progress. In his welfare message to Congress in 1962, he wrote: “The goals for our public welfare program must be positive and constructive ... (programs| must stress the integrity and preservation of the family unit. It must contribute to the attack on dependency, juvenile delinquency, family breakdown, illegitimacy, ill health, and disability. It must reduce the incidence of these problems, prevent their occurrence and recurrence, and strengthen and protect the vulnerable in a highly competitive world."
Kennedy was engaged in a major departure from precedent. No president --not Dwight D. Eisenhower, nor Harry S. Truman, nor Franklin D. Roosevelt, nor any of the predecessors—had seen the federal role in this light. This was something new.
... Kennedy's legacy to Lyndon Johnson was not a new system but a new tone, new expectations, and a new consensus that the federal government had a continuing responsibility to help poor Americans help themselves. What was the Public Response?
On the right and among large numbers of blue-collar Democrats, there was increasing resentment at the permanence of welfare. It was acceptable for a worker to receive
Leaders of the left and of minorities of all political persuasions were beginning to express their outrage at what they saw as pervasive injustice in the American system. Yes, the critics of the system agreed, welfare was too often permanent, but thanks to opportunity denied rather than opportunity spurned.
The last half of the 1960s saw remarkably broad agreement among the various sectors of the intelligentsia on the directions in which a just and effective federal social policy must move, and this agreement, this "elite wisdom," represented an abrupt shift from the past ... the most important of these changed premises was the belief that, left alone, the system would perpetuate unacceptable inequalities. The system itself was flawed.
1. Contrast the position of liberals and conservatives on the New Welfare.
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