How Johnson Fought the War on Poverty: The Economics and Politics of Funding at the Office of Economic Opportunity

Abstract

This article presents a quantitative analysis of the geographic distribution of spending through the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act (EOA). Using newly assembled state- and county-level data, the results show that the Johnson administration directed funding in ways consistent with the War on Poverty's rhetoric of fighting poverty and racial discrimination: poorer areas and those with a greater share of nonwhite residents received systematically more funding. In contrast to New Deal spending, political variables explain very little of the variation in EOA funding. The smaller role of politics may help explain the strong backlash against the War on Poverty's programs.

Federalizing benefits: The introduction of Supplemental Security Income and the size of the safety net

“…Research on the long-run development of the welfare system relies on periodic snapshots of policy variables (Fishback et al 2010, Moehling 2007, or narrative evidence (Alston and Ferrie 1985). Other work focuses on watershed periods like the New Deal (Fishback, Haines, and Kantor 2007) or the War on Poverty (Bailey and Duquette 2014). Recent research exploits unique datasets from a point in time such as Mother's Pension case records (Aizer et al 2014) or that of the full-count 1940 census (Fetter 2017, Fetter andLockwood 2016).…”

You Can't Fix What You Don't Measure: How ALICE Can Help Rebuild the Middle Class

“…For example, currently, combined benefits of the public assistance programs Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and SNAP do not allow residents to reach the FPL in any state, let alone afford basic household necessities (Falk ). Historically, even after the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt's Economic Bill of Rights did not pass, and although President Johnson made progress with the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act, its flagship Office of Economic Opportunity was disbanded four years later (Bailey and Duquette ; Roosevelt ; Wills ).…”

Patronage Politics and the Development of the Welfare State: Confederate Pensions in the American South

“…Data on the passage of Confederate pension laws by state legislatures is compiled from primary and secondary sources, 8 and is summarized in table 1. We obtain state balance sheet data from published annual reports to state treasurers, which are accessed from Hathi Trust.…”

“…We combine data on Confederate pension laws and applications with county-level census data 8 See data appendix for a detailed list of sources. 9 See data appendix for a complete list of sources and years for which these data are available.…”

“…While there is ample evidence that redistributive programs were used for political purposes during the 19th and early 20th centuries, this tendency seems to have declined by the mid to late 20th century. Bailey and Duquette (2014) show that the distribution of funds for War of Poverty programs during the Johnson administration was not politically motivated.…”