Why America Lost the War on Poverty--And How to Win It by Frank Stricker

Preface     xi
Introduction     1
The Golden Age of Laissez-Faire?: The 50s
The 1950s: Limited Government, Limited Affluence     9
Wars on Poverty: The 60s
Planning the War on Poverty: Fixing the Poor or Fixing the Economy?     35
Evaluating the War on Poverty: The Conservatism of Liberalism     61
Moynihan, the Dissenters, and the Racialization of Poverty: A Liberal Turning Point That Did Not Turn     83
Statistics and Theory of Unemployment and Poverty: Lessons from the 60s and the Postwar Era     101
Toward a War on the Poor: The 70s and 80s
The Politics of Poverty and Welfare in the 70s: From Nixon to Carter     117
Too Much Work Ethic: One Reason Poverty Rates Stopped Falling in the 70s, and the Stories That Were Told about It     141
Cutting Poverty or Cutting Welfare: Conservatives Attack Liberalism     157
Reagan, Reaganomics, and the American Poor, 1980-1992     183
The Poor You Will Always Have with You-If You Don't Do the Right Thing: 1993-Present
Staying Poor in the Clinton Boom: Welfare Reform, the Nearby Labor Force, and the Limits of the Work Ethic     209
Bush and Beyond: On Solving and Not Solving Poverty     231
Unemployment, Poverty, Earnings, and Household Structure     245
Annual Official Civilian Unemployment Rate and Author's Estimate of Real Rate, 1959-2005     245
U.S. Poverty Rates, 1950-2004     246
Real Weekly Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Workers in the Private Sector, 1964-2005     246
Percentage of Poor by Household Type, 1959, 1979, 1998     247
Groups Often Left Out of Antipoverty Discussions in the 60s and Today     249
Notes     251
Bibliographical Essay     325
Index     329