Reply to $22 Trillion spent on the war on poverty in the last 50 years...

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[quote=Anonymous][b]The War on Poverty: 50 years of failure[/b]

"This year marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson's launch of the War on Poverty. In January 1964, Johnson declared "unconditional war on poverty in America." Since then, the taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on Johnson's war. Adjusted for inflation, that's three times the cost of all military wars since the American Revolution. Last year, government spent $943 billion dollars providing cash, food, housing and medical care to poor and low-income Americans. (That figure doesn't include Social Security or Medicare.) More than 100 million people, or one-third of Americans, received some type of welfare aid, at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient. If converted into cash, this spending was five times what was needed to eliminate all poverty in the U.S.

The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its annual poverty report. [b]The report claims that in 2013, 14.5 percent of Americans were poor. Remarkably, that's almost the same poverty rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty started. How can that be?[/b] How can government spend $9,000 per recipient and have no effect on poverty? The answer is - it can't.  Census counts a family as poor if its "income" falls below certain thresholds. But in counting "income," Census ignores almost all of the $943 billion in annual welfare spending. This, of course, makes the Census poverty figures very misleading.  The actual living conditions of households labeled as poor by Census are surprising to most people. According to the government's own surveys, 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning; nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television; half have a personal computer; 40 percent have a wide-screen HDTV. Three-quarters own a car or truck; nearly a third has two or more vehicles."

http://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/commentary/the-war-poverty-50-years-failure

50 Trillion? How much is that per person (using today's population numbers)?

50 Trillion / 320,000,000 is $156,250 per person spent on eliminating poverty in the last 50 years. What could you do with $156K ?

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