1960s AD - Decade

Washington Monthly, Oct, 1999 by Joseph A. Califano

Great Society contributions to racial equality were not only civic and political. In 1960, black life expectancy was 63.6 years, not even long enough to benefit from the Social Security taxes that black citizens paid during their working lives. By 1997, black life expectancy was 71.2 years, thanks almost entirely to Medicaid, community health centers, job training, food stamps, and other Great Society programs. In 1960, the infant mortality rate for blacks was 44.3 for each 1,000 live births; in 1997, that rate had plummeted by two-thirds, to 14.7. In 1960, only 20 percent of blacks completed high school and only 3 percent finished college; in 1997, 75 percent completed high school and more than 13 percent earned college degrees.

In waging the war on poverty, congressional opposition was too strong to pass an income maintenance law. So LBJ took advantage of the biggest automatic cash machine around: Social Security. He proposed, and Congress enacted, whopping increases in the minimum benefits that lifted some two million Americans 65 and older above the poverty line. In 1996, thanks to those increased minimum benefits, Social Security lifted 12 million senior citizens above the poverty line.

The combination of that Social Security increase, Medicare and the coverage of nursing home care under Medicaid (which today funds care for 68 percent of nursing home residents) has had a defining impact on American families. Millions of middle-aged Americans, freed from the burden of providing medical and nursing home care for their elderly parents, suddenly were able to buy homes and (often with assistance from Great Society higher education programs) send their children to college.

No Great Society undertaking has been subjected to more withering conservative attacks than the Office of Economic Opportunity. Yet the War on Poverty was founded on the most conservative principle: Put the power in the local community, not in Washington; give people at the grassroots the ability to stand tall on their own two feet.

Conservative claims that the OEO poverty programs were nothing but a waste of money are preposterous--as preposterous as Ronald Reagan's quip that "LBJ declared war on poverty and poverty won" Eleven of the 12 programs that OEO launched in the mid-'60s are alive, well and funded at an annual rate exceeding $10 billion; apparently legislators believe they're still working. Head Start, Job Corps, Community Health Centers, Foster Grandparents, Upward Bound (now part of the Trio Program in the Department of Education), Green Thumb (now Senior Community Service Employment), Indian Opportunities (now in the Labor Department) and Migrant Opportunities (now Seasonal Worker Training and Migrant Education) were all designed to do what they have been doing: empowering individuals to stand on their own two feet.

Community Action, VISTA Volunteers, and Legal Services continue to put power in the hands of individuals down at the grassroots level. The grassroots that these programs fertilize just don't produce the manicured laws that conservatives prefer. Only the Neighborhood Youth Corps has been abandoned--in 1974, after enrolling more than five million individuals. Despite the political rhetoric, every president, Ronald Reagan included, has urged Congress to fund these OEO programs or has approved substantial appropriations for them.