Since its beginning, U.S. taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on Johnson’s
War on Poverty (in constant 2012 dollars). Adjusting for inflation,
that’s three times more than was spent on all military wars since the
American Revolution.
The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare
programs. These programs provide cash, food, housing and medical care to
low-income Americans. Federal and state spending on these programs last
year was $943 billion. (These figures do not include Social Security,
Medicare, or Unemployment Insurance.)
Over 100 million people, about one third of the U.S. population,
received aid from at least one welfare program at an average cost of
$9,000 per recipient in 2013. If converted into cash, current
means-tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all
poverty in the U.S.
But today the Census will almost certainly proclaim that around 14
percent of Americans are still poor. The present poverty rate is almost
exactly the same as it was in 1967 a few years after the War on Poverty
started. Census data actually shows that poverty has gotten worse over
the last 40 years.
How is this possible? How can the taxpayers spend $22 trillion on welfare while poverty gets worse?
The answer is it isn’t possible. Census counts a family as poor if
its income falls below specified thresholds. But in counting family
“income,” Census ignores nearly the entire $943 billion welfare state.
For most Americans, the word “poverty” means significant material
deprivation, an inability to provide a family with adequate nutritious
food, reasonable shelter and clothing. But only a small portion of the
more than 40 million people labelled as poor by Census fit that
description.
The media frequently associate the idea of poverty with being
homeless. But less than two percent of the poor are homeless. Only one
in ten live in mobile homes. The typical house or apartment of the poor
is in good repair and uncrowded; it is actually larger than the average
dwelling of non-poor French, Germans or English.
Read More: The Daily Signal
