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I'm not sure what that has to do with the poverty rate continuing to decline until the mid-70s and then staying down.

You said something about the regressive policies that hurt the poor. You haven't shown any evidence for this claim.




Poverty rates have failed to decline during almost the entire era of rapidly increasing social spending. There is less than a decade of poverty rate reduction during the War on Poverty era, and it is all at the beginning, when the economy and populace had still not become accustomed to large social welfare programs, and when the size of these programs was much smaller than it is now.

If social programs reduced poverty these aren't the stats you'd see.


So you are going from You mean regressive policies that hurt the poor, right? to There is less than a decade of poverty rate reduction during the War on Poverty era, ....

Cutting the Poverty Rate from about 22% to about 12% is hurting the poor. Got it.


The poverty rate was declining for decades before the War on Poverty began. After its start, when its programs were still small, it continued declining for a decade. Then the decline, which had been in place since long before the WoP began, ended, and has never again resumed, despite social spending only growing.

More extreme poverty began to increase decades into the War on Poverty, when social programs were far larger than they were at the beginning.

And in addition, there has been a major increase in single parenthood, which a lot of research indicates is largely a result of government low income subsidies making single parent households more economically viable. Single-parent households are associated with much worse socioeconomic outcomes that increase future poverty, incarceration and government dependency.

So my conclusion is that these policies are most likely harming the poor, by wiping out the poverty reduction that would otherwise be happening, and moreover, that there is very good reason to doubt that they're "progressive".

>>Cutting the Poverty Rate from about 22% to about 12% is hurting the poor. Got it.

The poverty rate was declining before the War on Poverty began. There's no reason to conclude that it is responsible for the continuation of that trend for a decade longer. There's plenty of reason to blame it for the cessation of that trend of declining poverty rates, rising wages and low rates of single parenthood.




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