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How successful was the War on Poverty?

Homeless
SamPac
/
creative commons
Poverty has doubled in Livingston County over the last five years

It has now been 50 years since President Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty.

There is a popular perception that President Johnson's War on Poverty failed. Critics point to the official poverty rate and say it has scarcely budged from 1964 to 2014, despite the $15 trillion spent in those 50 years.

But a University of Michigan economist is challenging that view. She is co-author of a new paper that analyzes spending during the Johnson Administration, and she believes it is wrong to call the War on Poverty a failure.

Martha Bailey joined us today.

Listen to the full interview above.

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