War on Poverty

In January of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a "War on Poverty." Over the next several years, the United States launched several programs aimed at drastically reducing the level of poverty throughout the nation. Now fifty years later, we have a number of lessons related to what has and has not worked in the fight against poverty. This book is a collection of chapters by both researchers and practitioners studying and addressing matters of poverty as they intersect with a number of broader social challenges such as health care, education, and criminal justice issues. The War on Poverty: A Retrospective serves as a collection of many of their observations, thoughts, and findings. Ultimately, the authors reflect on some of the lessons of the past fifty years and ask basic questions about poverty and its continued impact on American society, as well as how we might continue to address the challenges that poverty presents for our nation.

Editor Farmbry has assembled a policy-oriented group of scholars and practitioners who produced chapters that together comprehensively cover a range of topics and look back on 50 years of US anti-poverty efforts. Contributors cover the essentials of debates over poverty and its causes—e.g., single motherhood, racism, education, immigration, health care, rural/urban/suburban divides—as well as topics of special interest after the Great Recession, including a superb chapter on policies that contributed to the foreclosure crisis. The policy orientation means chapters cover not only the usual human capital, education, and workforce development strategies for alleviating poverty but also worker cooperatives and programs to promote 'inclusive capitalism'—ways to engage workers in decisions about production and investment and to compensate workers with a greater share of the returns to increased productivity. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above., Kyle Farmbry and his colleagues have written an important book which covers the pillars of what is known today as social policy. Fields such as education, health policy, children, families, and poverty are presented clearly and the reader will come away with a solid and comprehensive understanding of social policy as a field and its impact on our country in the past, present, and possibly the future. I strongly recommend this volume as one of the best of its kind., Kyle Fambry et al paint a realistic picture of poverty and inequality with a broad but skillful, evenhanded brush for all to see and experience. The story told in the compelling language of academic research, and augmented with the practical experience of passionate practitioners who work in this world on a daily basis, causes one to wonder how we went so wrong. The book thematically expresses the lessons and discourse emerging from years of fighting for equality for low-income female households, rural development in the south, the criminal justice system, the war on drugs, health care, education, and the housing crisis creating suburban poverty. The authors challenge us to look at workforce and poverty as a collective issue and think of new ways to engage our communities in the war on poverty, inequality and workforce development.

Kyle Farmbry is associate dean of the Graduate School and associate professor in the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University-Newark.