Viewers and come back and that will launch the conversation this morning about that. [video clip] very often, the lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty but the symptom. The cause may light deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities. A lack of education and training and a lack of medical care and housing and a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children area whatever the cause, our joint federal and local efforts must pursue poverty, pursue it wherever it exists from city slums in small towns, sharecropper shacks or in Migrant Worker k camps. On indian reservations, among whites as well as knee grows. Among the young as well as the aged, in the boom towns and the depressed areas. Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty but to cure it and above all [applause] [applause] to prevent it. Host lyndon in 1964. What led to this moment and why is it important . Guest thanks for having me on. Lyndon johnson was following in the footsteps of others, robert kennedy, john kennedy, when you think about that level of National Political leadership. Lyndon johnson knew some of this personally from his own experiences in texas. He knew that the country was being driven apart multiple ways , some of that was related to racial segregation and more, related to the incredible disparities but also economically. It was a real risk that some of the economic progress that had been made since the end of world war ii might not be sustained at least not equally sustained. This moment is so important because here you have an unusual moment where he president proposes something bold with the wherewithal and willpower and passion, the belief that this is something, even if we didnt have all the answers that we could take on as a country and that it would be good for all of us. Host what do you make of this moment in time and what is happening in america at this time . Guest in 1964, it was the middle of an economic boom, the likes of which we havent seen since. It would wind down within a few years partly because of the attempts to expand the war on poverty at the same time president johnson expanded the conflict in vietnam. By the end of the 1960s, this dream of growth will lift everybody to new heights that weve not seen before, that sort of goes away within a few years but in 1964, it was the apogee of optimism about what the country can a compass together. We dont have big deficits, those are decades away so theres not a lot of concern about that. Democrats had strong control in the congress. That would get Even Stronger with the election of 1964 and Barry Goldwater getting badly beaten by johnson. It was a time where there was a lot of experimentation and a lot of believe that there were no limits to what the federal government could do. Host what we are marking coming up is the 60th anniversary of Lbjs Great Society speech at the university of michigan. What was it about this speech . Guest the Great Society and the war on poverty, there was a lot happening at the same time that overlap. I think the Great Society ends up being even more ambitious than the war on poverty. The war on poverty as part of it but part of it is expanding civil rights agendas that president johnson was able to get through congress. You have a lot of programs around Community Involvement and boosting political power of local communities. You have things like headstart and other programs that arent necessarily about reducing property poverty but expanding opportunities. That in some ways is an expansion of this original idea of lifting more people out of poverty. Guest when president johnson is giving this speech of the university of michigan, hes trying to inspire the country and inspire future generations and talk about whats possible. It was an Older Society approach, it wasnt just all about government. One of the things president johnson and his administration did was to promote the development of new private institutions that would help guide and valuate the progress. He was essentially saying poverty is an injustice. Our Racial Disparities are in the justice and he talked a lot about protecting the environment and you can see how relevant all these issues are today. He said we need to come together as a country and this will help us build a stronger country and it will help us when we come together that we solve these problems and we will grow together. There were a number of shortcomings but by and large, that speech really outlines this vision of how we can tackle some of our greatest problems together with a few initial ideas but no certainty about all of the answers. Host this wednesday march the 60th anniversary of that speech. Here is an audio expert excerpt of it. [video clip] in your time, we have the opportunity to move not only towards a Richer Society and a powerful society but upward to the Great Society. The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice. To which we are totally committed in our time. [applause] host president Lyndon Johnson talking about the Great Society and marking the 60th anniversary of that speech this wednesday. Out of that came the war on poverty and that is our discussion this morning. Some key legislation during that time, Social Security amendments of 1965 created medicare and medicaid and expanded Social Security benefits. The foostamp act of 1964, the onomic opportunity act of 1964, that was job corps, the federal Workstudy Program and a number of other initiatives and then you have elementary and secondary education act subsidizing School Districts with a large share of impoverished students. What came out of this legislation . Guest in many ways, but this agenda was focused on was Health Coverage and Human Capital for lack of a better term, helping people develop educational knowledge, skills and talents, preparing them for the labor force. There was some on income support but generally to have people have a basic income which the Biden Administration wanted to have a guaranteed income but then decided against it. We really made progress later on a bipartisan as bases under nixon, ford and under president george w. Bush and others where we said this is a big gap. What came about from this time was pretty remarkable. These are durable programs. Medicaid not only reduces poverty by most measures that account for Health Coverage but it reduces peoples interactions with the criminal Justice System which is really important in an age of mass incarceration which is another thing the president didnt foresee but we went down that path. What didnt come about was a balancing of the economy. Similarly, as scott said, there is a sense of a rising tide would lift all boats. That was sort of true when you look back to when president kennedy first use that metaphor about stuff happening in part of that is because there was a massive decline in unionization. The economy is not producing the gauge it once did in an even way. It did produce gains but not for folks at the bottom. That made it more and more necessary if we didnt change out the economy was producing wages and earnings for groot, more was necessary to have in Public Benefits and support. We have durable programs like headstart that have shown to have positive longterm effects in many studies and sometimes these programs even pay for themselves which is pretty remarkable. At the same time, there were a number of trends and shifts happening that were not well addressed by the agenda at the time. Host what are your thoughts on the legislation and the impact today . Guest its a mixed bag. Medicare and medicaid were huge advances in terms of providing Health Insurance to a large segment of the population that lacked it. The war on poverty most immediate help most americans. There was a dramatic decline in property among the elderly. There were improvements in health and we can get into what the official measures of poverty says but the elderly were certainly helped by the security expansions and medicare. Health insurance for nonelderly family through medicaid was also very important. I think there were other aspects of the Great Society and the war on poverty that were less successful. Some of the expansions and liberalization of the aid to families with dependent Children Program which is the main cash Welfare Program was in existence at the time. They were probably counterproductive in terms of expanding the opportunity johnson wanted to see. Johnson was clear whenever he talked about poverty that the goal was not to lift people above an arbitrary line just by giving them transfers, he wanted people to become more selfsufficient, he didnt want them he would say dependent on the dole. By that criteria, the legacy of the war on poverty is more mixed. For a long time, the ways in which we expanded these programs ended up being somewhat counterproductive in the 1990s, there is a series of bipartisan reforms we can talk about but it set things up a little bit more balance. A lot of the programs he created would mean remained with us today. We need to have some of these programs and if we dont like them, we should find replacements for them rather than discarding them. We want to hear from all of you. If you live in the eastern or central part of the country, dial in at 202 7488000. Mountain pacific, 202 7488001. You can join us on facebook. Com cspan and on x at cspan wj or text us at 202 7488003. What is needed now where we are today as a society . Guest the United States has built an economy that has among the largest share of lowpaid jobs among rich countries. There is a glut of very lowpaying jobs in this country. When scott talks about people being selfsufficient even though i think we all depend on each other in various ways, often we are thinking about people working. Turns out lots of people are working and are paid poorly in the United States and that relates to the decline in unionization. We see more of a worker void and need to see more power. Or been gains for people who have low income including especially for some communities of color but also for white americans with the lowest incomes. They pale in comparison to the gains at the very top and they also, in my view, they often are dependent on some of these programs and transfers even more than i would like. I would like it to peoples jobs were compensated such that they could have a decent standard of living. Johnson was clear that this was about raising Living Standards across the country, rural or urban, black or white so thats necessary. The other thing thats necessary as a result of these challenges is a basic income floor. Weve found it did not do much of anything to discourage work. In fact, because our caregiving infrastructure is not what needs to become a lot of people even use unconditional income like the Child Tax Credit expansion in the American Rescue plan act, they use that income to allow them to go to work. I think we mean we need more and worker voices and supporting peoples caregiving needs throughout their life. Host how would you answer that question . Guest my analysis would start with whats happening poverty over time. I think the story is impressive, more than people realize. If you take the official poverty line the government has, by that definition, 1964 when president johnson makes this speech, 19 of the u. S. Population is poor. By that official measure today, is between 1112 so its gone down quite a bit but its the growth understatement of how much more we have produced poverty over time. The official measure doesnt include most of the major ways we have tried to attack poverty like income or food stamps or housing benefits, medicare and medicaid. It doesnt count the tax credits so we have better measures of poverty. When you look at those, the improvement is much better. The in numbers i put the most stuck and suggest the poverty rate in 1964 was 19 and today its 102 of them measure everything the same way. Dramatic inclines in poverty because we expanded the safety net but in large measure, is because of the strength of the american economy. The increases in income before recount transfers has been a big part of it as well. A big part of has been the changes we made in the 1990s which were reforms to the safety net that encouraged work through welfare reform. From there, if you look at intergenerational mobility, if you start the bottom as a kid, can you escape the bottom when you are an adult . We packed we made practically no progress in 60 years by that metric. That suggest the things we need to do it to increase upper mobility out of poverty over generations are different than the things we would want to do just reduce point in time poverty rate. There is a different agenda there in terms of getting disadvantaged kids ready for school. There has to be recognition of the importance of place and the disadvantages of concentrated poverty and i would say the twoparent family is really broken down over this time. Thats been harmful for kids in upward mobility. Its a safety net we had in the 1960s and 70s and 80s and thats to blame for that. Thinking how we can reform the programs we have that reduces poverty but does it in a way that is not going to limit upward mobility. Host what do you make of the upward mobility argument and focusing on education and other areas . Guest a major focus of the Great Society and the war on poverty was education. One thing we found as these investments in Early Childhood especially when complemented by the source of Elementary School investments in secondary school investments. We saw that increase peoples chances of moving out of poverty as adults. The kids were exposed to these programs, even programs like a bipartisan food stamp act, they have Better Health outcomes. People were in the early years of life exposed to medicaid are more likely to graduate from high school. These programs essentially ensure the basic foundation we all know that everyone one of his needs to access this opportunity and be able to thrive. I think we have a lot to build on a lot of these programs didnt go far enough. They absolutely acknowledge people and place and if you listen to the rest of the president s speech, he talks even more about rural areas, tribal reservations and talks more about the cities and the specific strategies that are needed and he acknowledges poverty everywhere and some of this has to do with place. Weve learned a lot about that. I think we have to we have done very little to ensure access to Affordable Housing for people in this country since then and its among the greatest challenges that we are facing. Housing is so important to influence peoples access to opportunities, transportation, education, jobs and yet in this country, housing has become quite unaffordable for many millions of people. Thats an area where i would love to see us tackle headon. Host lets get to our viewers. We are marking the 60 anniversary of Lyndon Johnsons Great Society speech. The anniversary is this wednesday, may 22. He gave a speech at the university of michigan. Kentucky is up first. Caller thank you very kindly. I believe that weve been privatizing publicsector sector functions for decades. Even after the rhetoric about growing government, the private sector has been taking over the Public Sector with a motive. The social safety act, there is wide range of income where you cannot make it up my to get by but a claim you get too much money to get help. Also, the thing about dependency is it people have the necessary conditions like food or bed to sleep in or something, then they will have what they need to acquire the conditions. Without that, you have to starve in the streets. The last thing i will say is if you look at poor lower income districts in our communities, they dont get the proper Public Sector functions. You look. At the well off areas and to get the best of everything. If everyone was elected at the large instead of districts, i will listen to your answer. Guest thats a lot. I maybe will take the first point about privatization. Im not entirely sure what the caller was referring to. I would call myself liking to leverage the strength of markets more so than we do. When you think of privatization, you can think of the private sector providing benefits without any public subsidy and obviously that doesnt always work out for low income americans. If we had a private educational system, you have growth in a quality education. You would also have people who could not afford any education. Also when you have Public Education system that is more less a monopoly of the government, that takes away a lot of the incentive to innovate it takes a lot of incentive away from putting kids priorities first. In a place like that, conservatives say we need to give kids more options to get their education from people other than the sort of monopoly public provider. That is why conservatives tend to like Charter Schools which organizes like a Public School but does not have a lot of the constraints. If you talk about i think the experiment with Public Housing which is less of a johnson in