WASHINGTON, March 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:
WAR ON POVERTY
Profile America — Thursday, March 16th. The first salvo in what we've come to know as the War on Poverty was fired on this date 53 years ago. Following President Lyndon Johnson's State of the Union call for tackling poverty in America, the Economic Opportunity Act was introduced, and passed by Congress. The landmark legislation was signed into law in August. The poverty rate in 1965, at the implementation of the programs, was around 16 percent, down from some 23 percent in 1959. The poverty rate continued to fall to a low of 11.1 percent in 1973. The past four decades has seen that rate edge upward. Last September, the Census Bureau reported the official U.S. poverty rate in 2015 was 13.5 percent, encompassing 43.1 million people. Profile America is in its 20th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Sources:
Johnson message to Congress/accessed 1/12/2017: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1964johnson-warpoverty.html
Poverty since 1959/figure 4, page 13: http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p60-245.pdf
Poverty since 1973: http://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/time-series/historical-poverty-people/hstpov5.xls
2015 poverty rate and total: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/pov-01/2016/pov01_100_1.xls
Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotion of the U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics and accounts drawn from cited non-Census sources are employed for illustrative or narrative purposes, and are not attested to by the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Audio" in the "Library" pull-down menu).
SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau
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