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Startling Poverty Facts Every American Should Know

We want to be good warriors in the war on poverty, but we miss the mark without understanding these simple but startling poverty facts.  

  1.  The percentage of Americans in poverty has remained flat for 50 years.  It was 11.9% in 1972 and 11.5% in 2022.  We’ve increased welfare dramatically but hardly impacted the poverty rate. More.
  2. The federal government spends twice as much money on welfare as the cost to merely give money to all Americans in poverty to end their poverty.  Here is the data.  
  3. The category of people in poverty in America experiencing the highest poverty rate is “adults not working,” at 31%.  The category experiencing the lowest poverty rate is “full-time working adults” at 2%.  More.  
  4. Only 7% of those in poverty are not working full-time because they can’t find work.  School explains 22%, retired early 12%, ill or disabled 33%, and family or home reasons 26%.   Here is the data.  
  5. Most welfare programs and charities operate without any personal interaction with those in poverty.  There is no help, encouragement, education, or expectations.   Most of our welfare and charity is a “hand out,” not a “hand up.”   The poor are on their own.  More.  

The poverty facts collide with LBJ’s “war on poverty”

Picture of a man shrugging about the reality posed by the facts on poverty.

President Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) declared a “war on poverty” on January 8, 1964.  The war has raged now for sixty years.   Americans have big hearts, and we want to help our fellow man.   So we responded to LBJ’s call to arms by creating a large and complex welfare system: 13 large welfare programs in 8 different agencies.   At the same time, we’ve established thousands of private-sector charities addressing food, housing, and other needs.

But as we look around today, we see a system focused on material items and very little about personal development.   There is little befriending, supporting, teaching, encouraging, and expecting going on in welfare and most charities.   All successful Americans have had caring people help guide them to success.   But our war on poverty ignores this reality.  So, instead, we get the reality of the poverty facts, and it isn’t pretty.