50 Years After the War on Poverty: Successes Should Inspire the Next Bold Steps for Poor Children

Safety net programs emerging from the War on Poverty and later antipoverty efforts such as Head Start, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), among others have reduced poverty, and strengthened longer-term outcomes for poor children, leading to better health and greater economic success into adulthood. Unfortunately, despite the strong positive effect of these public programs, the poverty rate is still too high, particularly among America’s next generation of children and young adults. Struggling with economic insecurity is now a typical experience for America’s next generation, with the overwhelming majority of low-income households with children consisting of at least one working adult. For many families, work is not enough to keep them out of poverty, especially due to decades of shrinking wages, lack of affordable child care, and too few opportunities to move up to a better job with higher wages. Even with modest assistance from public programs, millions of families still struggle with economic insecurity. We need to build on the success of the War on Poverty and target the new problems created by the low-wage labor market