With no guarantee that the numbers are necessarily accurate, study the following chart:
President Johnson announced his landmark "War on Poverty" at the State of the Union Address in January, 1964.
President Obama will probably mention something akin to poverty at his State of the Union Address 47 years later in January, 2011.
So what do the numbers tell you?
Government is necessary to deal with poverty?
Government does a good job in addressing poverty?
Government makes little or no difference in reducing poverty and could have saved a shipload of the people's money--make that mega trillions--if it had not initiated a 'war on poverty'?
Government actually contributes to poverty?
Or something in between?
Or none of the above?
In framing your conclusions, bear in mind that the above graphic does not include the changing definition of 'poverty' over the years, does not highlight the temporarily 'poor' due to joblessness, etc., and does not illustrate factors such as 12 to 20 million additional undocumented people since 1980 being included in the equation.
![800px-Poverty_59_to_05.png](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F5%2F55%2FPoverty_59_to_05.png%2F800px-Poverty_59_to_05.png&hash=d67d4cd842257d88c750e8b9f9217a06)
President Johnson announced his landmark "War on Poverty" at the State of the Union Address in January, 1964.
President Obama will probably mention something akin to poverty at his State of the Union Address 47 years later in January, 2011.
So what do the numbers tell you?
Government is necessary to deal with poverty?
Government does a good job in addressing poverty?
Government makes little or no difference in reducing poverty and could have saved a shipload of the people's money--make that mega trillions--if it had not initiated a 'war on poverty'?
Government actually contributes to poverty?
Or something in between?
Or none of the above?
In framing your conclusions, bear in mind that the above graphic does not include the changing definition of 'poverty' over the years, does not highlight the temporarily 'poor' due to joblessness, etc., and does not illustrate factors such as 12 to 20 million additional undocumented people since 1980 being included in the equation.