Li Yun: Poverty in American Society during the 1960s

Poverty is not merely an economic issue; it involves profound social questions. As a developed world power, the United States suffers from severe wealth polarization and poverty. In particular, the American grassroots are saturated with a massive impoverished population, while the wealth gap continues to expand.

In the 1960s, a serious social crisis was concealed beneath the surface of American prosperity. To resolve these social crises and contradictions, the U.S. government proposed a series of social security policies, including anti-poverty measures. However, because the institutional roots of long-term inequality proved difficult to resolve, the series of social problems caused by poverty and unemployment remained interconnected and persistent.

First, poverty became a chronic malady of American society. After the end of World War II, America’s economic strength was unprecedented. Yet it cannot be denied that a serious poverty problem existed within this developed and wealthy nation. In 1962, the American scholar Michael Harrington revealed in his book The Other America that behind the halo of an affluent United States, there actually existed a "poor America." He called for people to pay more attention to those impoverished populations who had long been ignored. Black poverty was one of the most prominent issues. Due to long-term enslavement and discrimination, Black Americans had far fewer educational opportunities than white people, leaving them with low levels of literacy and a lack of livelihood skills. Many Black Americans engaged in low-income work shunned by white people, and most lived in poverty. The unemployment rate for Black people was consistently higher than for whites; this persistently high unemployment rate caused many Black people to lose their economic independence. Many of them were situated at the bottom of American society, living in slums for generations, plagued and tormented by unemployment, drug use, violence, and malignant crime. All of these factors constituted significant causes of poverty among Black Americans.

Additionally, poverty caused by single-mother households became another focal point of the American poverty problem. While researching American poverty from 1950 to 1970, American sociologist Diana Pearce discovered distinct gender differences in poverty, a phenomenon she termed the "feminization of poverty." The feminization of poverty is manifested not only at the income and material levels but also in such dimensions as assets, health, education, psychology, and spirit. The most direct victims of the feminization of poverty are the women and their children who live in long-term poverty. The feminization of poverty in American society was very prominent; from 1950 to 1960, the proportion and number of single-parent families in the United States grew continuously, with single-mother households accounting for the vast majority. A single-parent family with a female head of household was three times more likely to live in poverty than a family with two parents. Single mothers had to both raise children and work outside the home to support the family; their meager income was insufficient to maintain a life for themselves and their children. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, in 1959, the number of poor families headed by women accounted for 23% of the national total; by 1965, this figure had risen to 28.5%.

Second, poverty could not be fundamentally eliminated. As the polarization between the rich and the poor grew increasingly serious, the ability of the American public to resist risks was greatly reduced. Under the tradition of deep-rooted racial discrimination, Black people and other ethnic minorities also faced more unjust treatment regarding wage income, leading to a much higher proportion of these groups among the impoverished population compared to whites. During this period, hundreds of large-scale racial conflicts and riots broke out consecutively in major American cities. In the view of the U.S. government, urban poverty was a primary cause of the American urban riots of the 1960s. Faced with racial conflict, urban riots, poverty, and moral disorder, the U.S. government was forced to react.

In 1964, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson declared a "War on Poverty," thereby raising the curtain on a large-scale anti-poverty war in American history. Johnson referred to his reform project as building a "Great Society." Its core idea was to utilize the authority and resources of the federal government to improve the quality of life in American society and enable more people to escape poverty. The centerpiece of Johnson’s efforts to eradicate poverty was the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. With this as its objective, the Johnson administration attempted to transform policies aimed at resolving structural unemployment and improving labor quality into welfare-oriented social policies with the ultimate goal of eliminating poverty by continuously expanding education and training. Under this act, the United States established the Office of Economic Opportunity and formed the Job Corps to provide education and training for young people who were both poor and lacked specialized skills. Recognizing that education is a vital way to solve the poverty problem, Johnson urged Congress to pass more than 60 education bills, including the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. This was the first law in American history through which the federal government provided general assistance to elementary and secondary schools, using educational funds to subsidize impoverished students in both public and private schools. Johnson also proposed the Medicaid program to provide free medical care for those unable to pay medical expenses and for people with disabilities, with costs shared by federal and state governments. Addressing the issue of impoverished single mothers, the Johnson administration introduced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, attempting to alleviate the plight of impoverished single mothers by providing cash assistance.

The U.S. government attempted to solve the problem of large-scale poverty through social welfare and social security measures. This plan successfully reduced the proportion of impoverished families in the United States from 22% to 13% in the 1960s. The U.S. believed it could thoroughly solve the poverty problem by strengthening education, training, and basic subsidies, but this is impossible to achieve in actual society. Poverty is a chronic malady troubling American society. Using reform measures to alleviate the plight of vulnerable groups is merely "scratching an itch through one's boot" ^[1]; it cannot fundamentally eliminate the problem. Many grassroots Americans, especially Black Americans, remain in a state of persistent and worsening poverty.

Third, the wealth gap continues to expand. In the 1970s, American social wealth grew sharply. The number of wealthy individuals possessing hundreds of thousands of dollars in property increased rapidly, and vast wealth became increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few tycoons. As the wealth gap became more apparent, American society displayed increasingly severe problems of class stratification and stasis. Most prominent was the decline of the white blue-collar class, represented by industrial workers. Many Americans felt anxious; it was no longer easy to obtain job opportunities, and the "American Dream" achieved by their fathers’ generation was difficult for the new generation to realize. Harvard University professor Robert Putnam, in his book Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, expressed anxiety over the widening gap of inequality in American society, arguing that class mobility in America has nearly ground to a halt and that the American Dream is in crisis.

For a long time, the United States has styled itself as a "City upon a Hill" ^[2], viewing itself as a model for practicing the concepts of liberty, equality, and democracy. The American Declaration of Independence states, "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Social rights involve a series of rights linked to citizens' economic security and social protection, specifically including the right to obtain government assistance and support when individuals are helpless, as well as the right to have good medical protection and a safe living environment. Herbert Croly, a thinker from the American Progressive Era, once pointed out that the government does not represent the interests of a specific individual or group but must represent the interests of the entire society. If the government only protects the rights of a portion of the people, it must sacrifice the interests of the majority of society. Therefore, the premise of democracy is that the interests of all groups can be represented.

Faced with a widening income gap and various social contradictions brought about by the divide between rich and poor, more and more Americans have come to question the slogan of "equality of opportunity." The American Dream—once a point of pride for Americans, where a poor child could achieve success through diligence and hard work, crossing social classes to become a member of the social elite—is becoming increasingly difficult to realize.