This course course, as you know, examines the development of the us. Well, first state the way americans have gone about making social provision for themselves. Social provision includes the range of programs at reducing risk or enhancing quality of life. As you know, our focus has on the specific issue of poor relief because relief of poverty seems to present the arin system with its most intractable, intractable problem. And im going to depart from our usual format here a little bit. Im going to do a fair amount of reading this afternoon because im concerned about covering all the material that we have to cover over the course of our exploration of the construction of the american welfare. Weve encountered several different persistent themes. A among these are the idea that in the united states, social provision is divided, public and private institutions. Public provide government provides welfare programs. The public like shapes welfare their programing through the tax system on the private end, as discussed, private entities provide Charity Philanthropy and importantly american employers provide the bulk of social welfare benefits. Another theme is the experimentation with institutional forms. Weve worked our way through outdoor relief. The idea that impoverished families supported by payments in cash or kind and remain in their own homes. Indoor relief of dickensian poor houses and the like, the the american system has tended to accommodate both forms simultaneous, constantly arguing back and about which one is preferable or at least least harmful. A third consideration is for the american system. Is the importance the pivotal role of relief as mechanisms for managing workforce. I think normally we think of poor relief as necessarily being aimed at relieving poverty, but in fact at the level of policymaking, relief is often about making sure that employers have access to a stable workforce and that concern is a shaping factor throughout the policies that we have looked at. A fourth theme has the tension in all of these between american commitment to compassion. The american idea that we are responsible for one another and that communities will take care of Vulnerable People within them that that is constantly at war with a commitment to instilling discipline, a commitment to work, to creating citizens are capable of being selfsufficient and establishing independence. Those those two pieces, compassion on the one hand, and commitment to, workforce discipline seem constantly to be at war with one another. A corollary of that, because we we operate these programs with warring underlying them. Its also true that we cannot completely make up our minds about what our goal for any of these programs. Is or are we attempting to facilitate a stable workforce in a complicated capitalist society . If so certain policy moves are presumably in order . Or are we trying to rid ourselves of policy of to express compassion . Which what what are we trying attempt here. Today . Less last week we left off with examination of the Social SecuritySocial Security act of 1935, the new deal legislation that laid the foundation for American Social provision and created the framework in which social provision operates to this day in todays session, were going to take up the Great Society phase of the development of american poor and poverty policy. The Great Society is a moniker for the ambitious Domestic Program launched the Johnson Administration in 1964. Lyndon johnsons for remaking American Life were expansive, not to say bottomless. We are interested here in what was for him a core element of his program of this Great Program that is the war on poverty, that war on multiple fronts fronts during his tenure, Congress Passed important landmark legislation providing for federal support of public education, for expanded job training, for access, for renewed access to health care. This includes the creation of the medicare and medicaid programs, a recommitment to public subsidized housing. This included the creation of the department of housing and development and a commitment also to new approaches to urbaN Development, including the Community Action programs that were part of the the on poverty legislation. Each of these elements was front in the war on poverty, but within the scope were hints of attack on poverty. Were going to be scrutinizing here today what you are reading about in the Gareth Davies material is Economic Opportunity act of 1964. This is the act that created the war on poverty and just for it will go through a little bit of its operation. But just to lay out here its structure so you know the act was comprised of five titles each of them attacking poverty on a different front. So we have job training in the job corps and Work Experience titles one in five. We have different sorts of business and economic assistance in titles three and four including assistance, impoverished Rural Communities who loom larger. We tend to forget poverty is not strictly an urban phenomenon in the united states. As as we learned in looking at what new deal researchers uncover when they went to the dakotas in the 1930s, the the key piece, the most dynamic element of the Economic Opportunity act turns out to have been the Community Action program created title two. And we will discuss that further. Community Community Action in brief took the view poverty only be addressed effective through comprehensive. That included the elements that are touched on in these other titles. A strategy to attack attack poverty had to think about job training, education, housing as well as where people were getting income from the Community Title also took the position that the only way that kind planning could get done effectively is if the people who were going to be subject to the plan, were involved in the planning. So the Community Action program set up a system whereby the federal government would make direct funding to grassroots groups around the country to plan and then to monitor the implementation of Community Wide anti poverty plans. This proved to be dinner, productive and highly controversial as well see. Note that the Economic Opportunity act did not address poor relief directly. It did not change. It did not provide for income assistance. On thursday. We will be talking using the quadrennial readings about the afdc aid to families with dependent children and how the Johnson Administration dealt with that program during during johnsons the in brief of afdc payments were significantly raised under johnson and other programs were instituted for example in 1964 formalization of the food program. But we know today is work so thats the layout were working through this the arc were digging through the the archeology the the of the american system starting in the cellar, working way up. Weve the ground Floor Foundation with the new deal were now working on the Great Society material. And within the Great Society were dealing today with the Economic Opportunity act on thursday, well be dealing with afdc in greater depth. So why in general or for our project does this matter. What were trying to do here is to identify the contributions that Great Society policy making made to the development, the american system of social provision and the significance of the Great Society effort is as a window into the dynamics of the american with poverty and how should be addressed as with all phases of the development of American Social welfare policy, the Great Society built on the institutional architecture erected, bypassed Great Society builds on new deal, new built, new deal built on mothers pensions. Mothers pensions built on war, pensions and on and on. Equally, the Great Society grappled with americans endemic ambivalence concerning social provision. We hope to build a compassionate society, but we also pride ourselves our independence and selfsufficiency and seek to support those qualities, our ethics of work and personal responsibility. So the question again, how is policy to be designed to meet that first objective compassion while respecting the second discipline and independ ence in addressing these challenges. The Great Societys war on poverty was in several ways, and you here innovations with regard to goals, with regard to approaches with regard to relation to social movements. So what am i speaking about here with regard to goals, the war on poverty expressed significantly larger concerning poverty and enhancement of american quality of life than any previous reform. It also a substantially expanded role government in achieving those goals. Johnson asked americans imagine a nation where poverty been ended by and through the efforts of the people working through their government. These were new ideas. How about policy approaches . Again, im here in particular to the Community Action, the war on poverty thus recognized the systemic nature of poverty, something that weve been waiting for policymakers to do throughout our readings. Right . So here were finally seeing americans saying, yes, poverty is maybe not simply about failings, maybe theres something bigger going on, recognizing systemic nature of poverty. The war on poverty sought to address it. Thus, the Community Action program created by the Economic Opportunity act drew together multiple anti initiatives addressing education, workforce development, urban planning, which previously operated in their separate silos. Its strategy was to attack in the specific communities where it predominated, it folded antipoverty initiatives into one comprehensive attack the conditions of poverty and engage residents of impoverished communities in planning and implementing it. So so one aspect that you want to pick up here is that for the war on poverty program, poverty was linked to poverty was, linked to city neighborhoods or Rural Communities in which it occurred. And the strategy for attacking poverty thus dealt with particular places and particular groups of planners impact of social movements. I hope youre. Well, you may be seeing in the data is reading that rather differently from the phases of Welfare Policy Development weve looked at thus far in case of the Great Society, the war on poverty was uniquely influenced. Grassroots pressure. The war was launched amidst the tumult of the sixties. In fact, it contributed to heightening that tumult. Great society initiatives helped to amplify voices previously sidelined in american political discourse, importantly, those of africanamerican women and poor people themselves in the pressures of a volatile in the sixties, policymakers heard and to these voices. Ultimately the to me the war on poverty is is because its so directly. Tests american values. In the war on poverty we see a direct confrontation between these values of compassion and discipline that that ive been to you the war on poverty thus tested the potency of the American Dream. The American Dream being the idea of america as a place of opportunity for all the war on poverty. That by testing whether policy could extend that opportunity to all americans, the war on poverty was confronted with and grappled directly with the possibility that modern americas economy could not be restructured to provide for all. And that jury fixes like the dole would be necessary to lift the american poor from poverty. The dole, meaning we give up. Were not going to try to this in any kind of systematic way. We will just write checks. Thats the best we can do. A war on policy, one poverty policy makers retained the doubt that a dole or any kind of forced redistribution could achieve the end of poverty or that the would not fatally undermine other aspects of the poverty that americans deem essential specifically the hope of becoming a nation of independent and selfsufficient equals. So lets lay out the background of the Economic Opportunity act attempt and bear with me. Im going to go through some background pieces just to get those pieces laid out and then we will get to the act itself. Okay, so, so background, is that all about Great Society intervention into american poverty built on existing structures for provision of relief and operated within a preexisting framework of values relating to Compassion Community and work with regard to institutional structures again as saw in particular in the new deal materials and issue four of welfare provision at the National Level was were programs to be structured as insurance or structured as assistance Insurance Programs like Social Security were those in which benefits were based in part on contributions paid in by beneficiaries. And these programs were more respected than assistance programs, programs like aid to families, dependent children, afdc which operated as a public grant or dole to the needy. Second set of distinctions are national or state. These these two tend to track one another. Social security as a National Program administered, the federal government provided a more stable stream of benefits and one that was consistent across regions a more stable than state administered programs like, for example, Unemployment Compensation or aid to families with children. So the there a clear hierarchy here and the youre youre always safer if youre on the insurance side of the equation and if youre on the National Side of the equation insurance and national means, for example, what we know as Social Security those monthly checks to older people, afdc is both assistance weaker and state controlled weaker again, leaving people more vulnerable. So this this is the institutional set of structures that the war on poverty going to have to figure out how to how to build on again the war on poverty has to engage these values that been talking about and i guess what im arguing here is that the Johnson Program felt that maybe it had solved this problem, just maybe it had to come up with way to meld our commitment to compassion the american commitment compassion for those among us who are in need with the american commitment to, independence, selfsufficiency, go getter ism. And the way this was going to operate was creating a program thats that relied the health of the American Economy and had faith that that economy could provide for everybody, if only access could be opened up. The program as its task. The opening up, it recognized the economy was not open to all and took as its task the opening up of the economy. If that could work, then maybe american could both demonstrate compassion while sticking to their ribbed commitment to economic independence independence. So we want to i want to look with you at a couple of pieces, couple of back of background pieces that said. In two shaping the program. Think as we as weve gone through these programs weve been trying to establish in each phase of American Development what the Historical Context of Program Development has been, what kinds of values are kinds of and kinds of social. Each phase of the program on so lets lets try to do that here for the war on poverty. I want to raise some issues contemporary ideologies some of the contemporary experiments are going on in the realm of poverty policy prior the Economic Opportunity act. And then we need to mention a couple of things about Lyndon Johnson, who was without a doubt a factor in this in this development. So starting with ideology, i have three notable notable public intellectuals or criers in the wilderness. Take your pick to present you, starting with john kenneth galbraith, who in 1958 published the society. Galbraith was an economist. He was part the court of camelot with the Kennedy Administration. He remained, as an advisor to johnson, he is a was a tremendously urbane, witty, gracious, public intellectual. He published often and in the case of the affluent society, he was indicting americans. We are now in 1958. Were moving toward the end of the fifties. We mired in eisenhower stability. We are stealing our wealth as a society we are still sitting on top of the world diplomatically. We still view ourselves as the nation that one, the second world war. We