A Decade of Federal Antipoverty Programs. Achievements, Failures, and Lessons

383 Pages·1977·5.395 MB·English

by  Robert H. Haveman (Eds.)

Institute for Research on Poverty
Poverty Policy Analysis Series
Robert D. Plotnick and Felicity Skidmore, Progress Against Poverty:
A Review of the 1964-1974 Decade
Robert H.Haveman, Editor, A Decade of Federal Antipoverty Programs:
Achievements, Failures, and Lessons
Maurice MacDonald, Food, Stamps, and Income Maintenance
In Preparation
Joel F. Handler, Ellen Jane Hollingsworth, and Howard S. Erlanger,
Lawyers and the Pursuit of Legal Rights
A Decade of Federal
Antipoverty Programs
ACHIEVEMENTS, FAILURES, AND LESSONS
Edited by
ROBERT H. HAVEMAN
Institute for Research on Poverty
University of Wisconsin—Madison
ACADEMIC PRESS New York San Francisco London
A Subsidiary of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers
This book is one of a series sponsored by the Institute for
Research on Poverty of the University of Wisconsin pursuant to
the provisions of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.
Copyright © 1977 by the Regents of the University of Wisconsin
System on behalf of the Institute for Research on Poverty.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Academic Press, Inc.
Ill Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003
United Kingdom Edition published by
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24/28 Oval Road, London NW1
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Decade of Federal antipoverty programs.
(Poverty policy analysis series)
Papers from a conference sponsored by the Institute
for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin, in
1974.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Economic assistance, Domestic—United States—
Congresses. I. Haveman, Robert H. II. Wisconsin.
University—Madison. Institute for Research on Poverty.
III. Series.
HC110.P63D42 1977 362.5'0973 76-42969
ISBN 0-12-333256-7 (Paper)
ISBN 0-12-333250-8 (Cloth)
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
List of Contributors
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which the authors' contribu-
tions begin.
KAREN DAVIS (197), The Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Av-
enue N.W., Washington, D.C.
LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMAN (21), Stanford Law School, Stanford, Cali-
fornia
J. DAVID GREENSTONE (241), Department of Political Science, University
of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
ROBERT H. HAVEMAN (1), Institute for Research on Poverty, University of
Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
ELLEN JANE HOLLINGSWORTH (285), Institute for Research on Poverty,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
HENRY M. LEVIN (123), National Bureau of Economic Research—West,
204 Junipero Serra Boulevard, Stanford, California
LAURENCE E. LYNN, JR. (55), John F. Kennedy School of Government,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
PAUL E. PETERSON (241), Department of Political Science, University of
Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
PHYLLIS A. WALLACE (329), Alfred P. Sloan School of Management,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts
\M1
The Institute for Research on Poverty is a national center for
research established at the University of Wisconsin in 1966 by a
grant from the Office of Economic Opportunity. Its primary objec-
tive is to foster basic, multidisciplinary research into the nature
and causes of poverty and means to combat it.
J]|j In addition to increasing the basic knowledge from which
policies aimed at the elimination of poverty can be shaped, the
Institute strives to carry analysis beyond the formulation and testing of
fundamental generalizations to the development and assessment of relevant
policy alternatives.
The Institute endeavors to bring together scholars of the highest caliber
whose primary research efforts are focused on the problem of poverty, the
distribution of income, and the analysis and evaluation of social policy,
offering staff members wide opportunity for interchange of ideas, maximum
freedom for research into basic questions about poverty and social policy, and
dissemination of their findings.
Foreword
In 1974, a decade after the war on poverty was declared, the Institute for
Research on Poverty sponsored a conference to evaluate the degree to which
the war on poverty had been successful. Seven major papers on the war on
poverty—dealing with its origins, its education, health, and income-
maintenance programs, and its community action, legal services, and an-
tidiscrimination policies—were commissioned for that conference. This book
presents these papers, along with discussants' comments and an overview
paper.
Was the war on poverty successful? In some ways, yes; in other ways, no.
Karen Davis concludes that Medicare and Medicaid led to remarkable in-
creases in the access of poor people to medical care services and that some of
the experimental health delivery programs also led to improvements in the
health of the poor. Similarly, Paul E. Peterson and J. David Greenstone argue
that the Community Action program succeeded admirably in "increasing the
political participation of previously excluded citizens, particularly black
Americans." And, in her essay on the Legal Services program, Ellen Jane
Hollingsworth concludes that this program was successful in increasing the
availability of legal services to the poor. In stark contrast, Henry Levin
presents evidence that the education and training programs of the war on
poverty failed to lead to increases in the incomes of the poor. The evaluations
by Phyllis Wallace and Laurence Lynn fall somewhere between these two
extremes. Wallace concludes that the evidence on the efficacy of antidis-
crimination policy in employment and housing is inconclusive. While Lynn
notes that new income-maintenance programs and changes in old ones did
substantially reduce the poverty gap between 1965 and 1972, he also con-
cludes that the policies adopted were inefficient and, in some ways, inequita-
ble as well.
ix
Foreword
X
Of course, not all experts share the judgments expressed in these papers.
Some of the conference discussants—there are two for each paper—present
cogent counterevaluations. Although the sources of differences in evaluations
are many, one should be emphasized since it formed a recurring theme at the
conference.
Some authors and conference participants evaluated poverty programs by
the extent to which they increased the money income of the poor—that is, by
the extent to which conventionally measured poverty is reduced. Others
evaluated the programs by the extent to which they increased the consump-
tion of certain goods and services by the poor. For example, was the Commu-
nity Action program successful if it generated greater political participation
on the part of the poor but little if any change in the economic condition of the
poor? Similarly, were the education and training programs of the war on
poverty successful if they led to an increase in educational resources devoted
to the poor but did not lead to income increases which exceeded program
costs? To answer these questions requires answers to other questions. How
much do we value political participation and education as ends in them-
selves? Under what circumstances is it desirable to make in-kind rather than
cash transfers? In short, evaluations of the success, or lack thereof, of the
war on poverty involve issues of moral philosophy and judgments about
political possibilities, as well as objective social science research.
There is also disagreement on why we had a war on poverty. Friedman
traces the origins of the war on poverty to changing expectations about
government and the nature of the presidency. In his view, it was not an
explicit response to the demands of interest groups. In contrast, others argue
that the war on poverty was a rather natural outgrowth of and response to the
civil rights movement.
Finally, in an overview essay, Robert Haveman, former director of the
Institute for Research on Poverty, cites statistical evidence that substantial
progress toward reducing poverty was made during the decade. In part as a
result of this success, he speculates that attention in the United States will
shift from combating poverty to the more general issue of reducing income
inequality. Moreover, he anticipates that this concern will, in the next de-
cade, lead to a revamped income transfer and federal revenue system,
significantly expanded public employment programs, and policies designed to
improve the functioning of the labor market.
In addition to this book, another book, Progress Against Poverty: A Review
of the 1964-1974 Decade, by Robert Plotnick and Felicity Skidmore was
prepared for the conference. Progress Against Poverty was the first book
published in the Institute's Poverty Policy Analysis Series. This volume is the
second. Together, these two books contribute to our understanding of what
was and was not achieved by the war on poverty.
Irwin Garfinkel
Director, Institute for Research on Poverty
I
Introduction: Poverty and
Social Policy in the 1960s and
1970s—An Overview and Some
Speculations
ROBERT H. HAVE MAN
As one of its legacies, the war on poverty has served to remind us once
again of the difficulty of effectively planning or, indeed accurately anticipat-
ing, the course of social policy. During the decade from 1965 to 1975,
numerous federal government policies were planned and undertaken as part
of the war on poverty. Other policies with the objective of aiding low-income
people were also implemented, although not as an explicit part of the plans and
actions of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the planning agency for
the war on poverty. Rapid changes occurred in still other policies affecting the
poor, but not as a result of either executive branch planning or legislative
initiative. Many of these changes and their effects were largely unanticipated.
While several of the measures explicitly designed to reduce income poverty
proved to be rather ineffective, some of the unanticipated and unplanned
changes were potent in increasing the economic welfare of those at the bottom
of the income distribution. Hence, while the net result was a substantial
reduction in poverty over the decade, many of the policy changes contributing
Robert Haveman is Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin and Fellow of the
Institute for Research on Poverty. This essay was written while the author was on leave as a
Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. The support of the Netherlands Institute
is gratefully acknowledged. Helpful comments on an earlier version of the essay were given by
Glen Cain, Hans Daudt, Irwin Garfinkel, Robert Lampman, Robert Plotnick, and Felicity
Skidmore. Their help is gratefully acknowledged.
1
2 Robert H. Haveman
to this were not anticipated in 1965, nor were they a central part of OEO's plans
for poverty reduction.
It was to place these policy changes into some perspective and to provide
an evaluation of their impacts that the Institute for Research on Poverty
organized the conference on A Decade of Federal Antipoverty Policy:
Achievements, Failures, and Lessons. This conference—held in February,
1975 at the Johnson Foundation's Wingspread Conference Center in Racine,
Wisconsin—was attended by 50 scholars and policymakers who had studied
developments in the war on poverty or had been active in the implementation
of antipoverty policies or both. Seven papers were presented at the confer-
ence and subjected to the commentary and critique of 14 formal—and
numerous informal—discussants. This volume is a record of that conference;
in it, all 21 of the formal papers and discussions are presented. These
presentations describe the nature of antipoverty policy developments during
the decade and appraise their effectiveness. But, perhaps more important,
each paper attempts to draw those lessons from the last decade's experience
which might contribute in the next decade to more effective and more
equitable policies.
This introductory essay seeks to set the rest of the volume into some
perspective. It is not meant to summarize the papers nor to draw from them
one or a few common themes, and it does not attempt to convey any general
consensus reached by the conference participants. Indeed, if a consensus
existed, its content was not obvious. The essay contains two parts. In the first
part, the basis of and motivation for the war on poverty are reviewed. The
premises used to justify the strategies chosen are recounted, and the progress
against poverty during the 1965-1975 decade is appraised. This section draws
heavily from the conference papers. If anything is added to them it is the
theme that many important policy developments affecting the poor during
this decade were not to be found on the agenda of the war on poverty planners
in the 1960s. Indeed, many of the crucial developments were not and could
not have been anticipated at the inception of the war on poverty. Hence,
while poverty was reduced during the decade, it is difficult to attribute this
result directly to the programs that were an explicit part of the war. Other
changes—perhaps enabled and encouraged by antipoverty policies, but not a
central part of them—must also receive credit.
In the second section of the paper, some recent developments in the
nation's political and social structure are noted and the legacy of past social
policy is recalled. These serve as the basis for a few speculations regarding
the nature of future debate on the course of social policy. The speculations
offered in this part reflect but one view of the future implications of some
recent social and political trends. Increased attention to the implications of
such underlying changes may well be the appropriate response of social
scientists disillusioned over the failure of planned social change and the naive
belief in the power of rational public policy.1
1See the 1974 Presidential Address to the American Economics Association by Walter Heller
Poverty and Social Policy 3
BASIS OF AND MOTIVATIONS FOR WAR ON POVERTY
The origins of the war on poverty are several: compassion stemming from
abysmal hardship evident in pockets of the population identified by geog-
raphy, culture, and race; embarrassment over the inconsistency of this hard-
ship with the image of U.S. affluence; fear regarding the potential for violence
and disruption inherent in such inequality; excitement stimulated by the call
for progressive new policies by an administration with "liberal" inclinations
(or at least rhetoric); and faith in the efficacy of social planning stimulated by
social scientists and other academics whose public respect and influence was
at its zenith. To disentangle these forces—or to order them—is an impossible
task. However, all of these factors were present in some degree.2 Interest-
ingly, except for general concern with the unemployment and economic
position of blacks generated by the civil rights movement there was no
organized interest group demanding new programs for the poor. Similarly,
there was no history of party platforms that had assigned this problem
particularly high priority. And, there was no apparent surge of public opinion
designating poverty to be the central domestic policy problem.3
It was due in part to the nature of these origins that the war on poverty
developed as it did. Perhaps because no organized interest group represent-
ing the poor was there to demand direct subsidization, and perhaps also
because of the domination of OEO policy planning efforts by social scientists,
the strategy adopted by the war on poverty was premised on the view that the
problem was ultimately one of low labor market productivity. The poor were
viewed as being in that state because they did not work enough, or because
they did not work hard enough, or because their meager skills and qualifica-
tions were insufficient to raise them out of poverty even if they did work hard.
This condition was in turn attributed to several factors—the lagging state of
the economy, the characteristics of the poor themselves, and discrimination
against these characteristics by those who controlled access to jobs or goods
and services. All of these factors represented fundamental problems of the
American economy. Hence, it was argued that any truly effective policy
would have to strike at these root causes. Policy to reform or expand the
system of income transfers might reduce the maldistribution of income and
for a discussion of the basis of and the response to this disillusionment. Walter W. Heller,
"What's Right with Economics," American Economic Review 65 (March 1975): 1-26. See also
Lance Liebman, "Social Intervention in a Democracy," The Public Interest, No. 34 (Winter
1974): 14-29.
2Both the papers by Lawrence Friedman and by Paul Peterson and David Greenstone in this
volume deal with these intellectual and political origins of the war on poverty.
3This is not to imply that there was no support for such an effort in the climate of public
opinion prevailing at that time. The book by Michael Harrington, The Other America (New York:
Macmillan, 1962) and the article "Our Invisible Poor," by Dwight Mac Donald in the January 1964
New Yorker were widely read and discussed. They did appear to motivate intellectuals and other,
largely upper-middle class, individuals who read literature of that sort. In some sense, these
writers built upon the earlier case for public sector action against poverty made by John Kenneth
Galbraith in The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958).