LBJ’s 1964 SOTU: ‘War on Poverty’
In 1964 the poverty rate was nearly 25 percent; over 40 million Americans were living on less than $3,000 a year. President Lyndon B. Johnson chose to declare war on unemployment and the conditions that caused this economic pain. “Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hope – some because of their poverty, and some because of their color, and all too many because of both. Our task is to help replace their despair with opportunity. This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America … Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.”
