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“President Lyndon Johnson declared “all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in these United States” in his 1964 State of the Union address. Since then, the United States has spent $22 trillion on the war on poverty. This does not include Social Security and Medicare spending. The curious thing about all of this, though, is that the poverty rate in the United States was already declining prior to the declaration of this particular war. The US poverty rate fell steadily from 22.4 percent in 1959, to 19.5 percent in 1963. By the end of 1964, it was 19 percent. The poverty rate then declined steadily from 1965 until 1973, when it bottomed out at 11.1 percent. Since then, the poverty rate has averaged 13 percent, moving between 11.1 percent and 15.2 percent ever since. What we have been waging war on since about 1973 is unclear. If it is poverty, we will have to admit that we are not winning, as the poverty rate has remained largely unchanged for about 45 years.” — Antony Davies