The war on poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union Address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent.

War on Poverty, expansive social welfare legislation introduced in the 1960s by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and intended to help end poverty in the United States. It was part of a larger legislative program, the Great Society, that Johnson hoped would make the United States more equitable and just.

In a late afternoon phone call on 29 July 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson implored a fellow Texan, House Appropriations Committee chair George H. Mahon [D-Texas], to help pass the economic opportunity bill that would launch Johnson’s War on Poverty: “You help me, because this is one I just can’t lose. This is the only Johnson proposal I ...

Nov 17, 2017 · Many Great Society programs fell under the War on Poverty umbrella. LBJ spent time after college teaching impoverished Mexican-American immigrants on the border of Texas and Mexico, an...

Jan 8, 2004 · Forty years ago today in his first State of the Union speech, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a "War On Poverty." Johnson's declaration came just weeks after succeeding to the White House...

Jan 8, 2014 · The War on Poverty played a significant role in reducing poverty in the United States. In 1964, the poverty rate was 19 percent. Ten years later it was 11.2 percent.

Jan 8, 2014 · Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson declared an "unconditional war on poverty in America." It was something he knew well, says historian Robert Caro.

As he campaigned in 1964, Johnson declared a "war on poverty." He challenged Americans to build a "Great Society" that eliminated the troubles of the poor. Johnson won a decisive victory over his archconservative Republican opponent Barry Goldwater of Arizona.

It will give the entire nation the opportunity for a concerted attack on poverty through the establishment, under my direction, of the Office of Economic Opportunity, a national headquarters for the war against poverty. This is how we propose to create these opportunities.

Johnson believed that the most effective way to "win the war on poverty" was to introduce legislation, programs, and tax cuts that would result in a Great Society, giving all Americans—not just the poor and underprivileged—a better quality of life.