Major parties in the United States have always claimed that their political agenda was the surest remedy for redressing income imbalances. This abiding confidence has historically been fueled by numerous factors, most notably the United States’ seemingly inexhaustible abundance of natural resources, unflappable Yankee ingenuity, unique good fortune, promotion of entrepreneurial sensibilities, and an ingrained “Protestant work ethic.” American culture has always held fast, even in the bleakest of times, to the notion that anyone can secure an easy and affluent life by working hard enough or by having the right kind of luck.
As the United States entered the world stage as an industrial giant in the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, politicians and public officials became increasingly concerned with addressing the increasing economic disparities between the spectacularly wealthy and the miserably impoverished. These disparities, in the midst of a burgeoning economy and incalculable abundance, inspired the progressive movement. During this time period, both the Democratic and Republican parties possessed progressive wings, and these groups, along with the populist third parties of the era, pushed for major economic reforms such as safer working conditions in factories, the creation of public hospitals, wage reform, limits on child labor, an eight-hour workday, and a progressive federal income tax. With the economic boom of the 1920s, the possibility of eliminating poverty seemed well within reach.
However, the global depression in the 1930s shattered these illusions—that is, until advocates for the poor and vulnerable found their voice in the presidency of Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Numbering among his famous “four freedoms” the freedom from want, Roosevelt affirmed the basic American principle that poverty could and should, by right, be eradicated from society. Roosevelt developed an “economic bill of rights” that endorsed a right to prosperity, and in so doing, he advanced the idea that every citizen was entitled to live a life free from the miseries of poverty. FDR’s New Deal policies shaped the manner in which the federal government addressed poverty for generations to come. By instituting a range of entitlement programs and social safety nets—most notably the Social Security program—the Roosevelt administration transformed the role of the federal government in the economic sphere and changed attitudes, in both parties, about the government’s responsibility for dealing with the indigent and the economically disadvantaged. These attitudes pervaded the administrations of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower (although a Republican, he embraced the tenets of the New Deal, much to the chagrin of his more conservative colleagues), John Kennedy, and particularly Lyndon Johnson.
By the advent of the Campaign of 1964, urban and rural poverty had become major political issues. “White flight” from major urban centers had left inner cities with extremely high levels of poverty, rising crime rates, substandard housing, hunger, and a host of other social problems. Rural areas were facing similar crises. Democratic incumbent Lyndon Johnson defeated Republican nominee Barry Goldwater in a landslide, giving Johnson the votes he need to push his Great Society program through Congress. Johnson’s efforts involved an unprecedented expansion of antipoverty programs, including Medicaid, food stamps, the National School Lunch Act, the Child Nutrition Act, and the Housing and Urban Development Act—in all, the largest package of antipoverty reforms since Roosevelt’s New Deal three decades earlier. Congress also indexed the Social Security program to inflation and appropriated funds to aid local school systems with high numbers of students from poor families. While the Johnson administration found it difficult to deliver both the guns it needed for the war in Vietnam and the butter to supply the needy, LBJ’s “war on poverty” defined his domestic agenda and continued to influence American public policy well into the 1970s. Republican president Richard Nixon famously flirted with a negative income tax as a means of reducing poverty during this era, and his administration embarked on a revenue-sharing program to provide federal funds for improvements in living standards in the nation’s inner cities.
However, the economically depressed latter years of the 1970s and into the early 1980s contributed to growing discontent with social welfare programs. Sharp lines formed separating the major political parties regarding problems associated with poverty and income inequality across the United States. The Reagan administration promoted an essentially laissez-faire economic policy in which the benefits given to corporations and investors would “trickle down” to middle- and working-class Americans, ultimately raising living standards for all. Reagan portrayed recipients of government aid as “welfare queens” who would rather live off of the public dole than find a paying job. Reagan’s critics attacked what they derisively termed “trickle-down economics” as the former failed policies of the Gilded Age with a new label. Reagan’s opponents also expressed concerns about the lack of compassion in leaving the fate of the poor to the caprices of the market. Nonetheless, even though “Reaganomics” never achieved complete implementation (Reagan himself was less ideological on these positions than both his supporters and critics had anticipated), the electoral success of Reagan and his successor, George H. W. Bush (who had previously criticized trickle-down theories as “voodoo economics”), forced Democrats to modify their approach to meliorist programs.
President Clinton typified the New Democrat through his attempt to develop a “third way” that attempted to incorporate, with mixed results, a greater sensitivity to unfettered, dynamic markets without completely abandoning social programs supportive of the poor. Clinton’s failed health care reforms and alterations in the welfare system are representative of this shift in attitudes among Democrats, a shift that to many analysts occurred in response to the Reagan Revolution, ostensibly “pulling the country to the right” and reopening questions about entitlement programs that had previously been regarded as closed. Clinton’s dismantling of Aid to Families with Dependent Children typified the new approach to social programs, and one that previous Democrats, from FDR through Carter, would have found unacceptable. But the Clinton administration enjoyed an economic boom; the 1990s was probably the most prosperous decade since the 1950s and one of the more prosperous decades in history. Poverty was certainly not overcome, but the spirit of the nineties was one of considerable optimism regarding the future of the American economy.
Thus, the Campaign of 2000 was not shaped by the kind of concerns that existed in the Campaign of 1992 when Bill Clinton, reminding his fellow candidates that “It’s the Economy, Stupid,” defeated an incumbent president during an economic downturn. Democratic nominee Al Gore and Republican nominee George W. Bush were not as focused on the issue of poverty and economic uncertainty that fixed the attention of the candidates in 1992. The closest either candidate came to discussing issues of income inequality was in their competing plans to remedy the Social Security program, and in their competition to offer prescription drug benefits to elderly Medicare recipients (neither of which was a means-tested program). Bush, in fact, sought to distance himself from the harsher rhetoric associated with the Reagan years by using a new slogan, “compassionate conservatism.”
The Campaign of 2004 occurred at the height of the housing bubble and in the midst of two wars. The country had been enjoying a jobless recovery; while many Americans were not personally better off (and too many were deeply in debt), most were unconcerned about the lurking problems underlying the economy and focused more on the threat of terrorism. The foreclosure crisis, the stock market crash, a spate of bank failures, and the advent of the Great Recession during the Campaign of 2008 were stark reminders to many voters that bankruptcy and poverty, and all of the miseries that attend them (such as the loss of housing and medical care), remained tangible possibilities. When more Americans feared becoming members of the lower class, the concerns of the lower class suddenly became more salient and pressing. Americans voted en masse to remove the incumbent Republican Party from power.
However, by the Campaign of 2012, while the economy had undergone some improvement, however gradual, for many Americans things remained very much as they were in 2008. Many Americans were jobless, even while many corporations enjoyed profitability. Many still struggled to pay their bills, while the media broadcast news stories about corporations that paid no federal taxes and even collected millions, or billions, of dollars in government subsidies. Banks and investment firms received federal bailout funds, while small business owners and homeowners found themselves filing for bankruptcy and many were still in danger of losing their homes. The poor remained poor, and for the first time in a very long time, the middle class worried about joining their ranks. The 2010 census estimated that one in seven Americans was at or below the poverty line, with Latinos and African Americans disproportionately represented in the ranks of the underprivileged. Incumbent president Barack Obama’s approach to reelection was to focus on those who were struggling to get by, and to convince them that if reelected, he’d use the resources and institutions of government to help them, including mortgage reform, extension of unemployment benefits and programs for the poor, expansion of college assistance for the poor and middle class, programs for veterans, expansion of health care benefits, and job creation (through the stimulus bill and government assistance for the private sector). Republicans countered that such programs were too costly, particularly given the burgeoning federal debt. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney famously explained in a CNN interview in the early days of the primary season that he was not concerned about the very poor, because they had a social safety net to protect them (he also noted that he was not concerned about the very rich). Newt Gingrich called Obama “the food stamp president” and suggested that federal labor laws be revised so that children of poor families could be put to work in their neighborhood schools as janitors so they could learn an appropriate work ethic. As the rhetoric indicates, presidential candidates are not very accustomed to seeking the votes of the poor, and often they lack basic information about the lifestyles of the poor in America.
This rhetoric changed in the Campaign of 2016. The Republican Party placed newfound emphasis on income inequality, with candidates sounding sympathetic to working-class voters. Even so, Republican aspirants persistently and uniformly embraced a flat income tax, a position incompatible with those working-class sympathies. Democratic candidates crusaded against the excesses of big business and an unfair tax code that enables hedge fund managers to pay a fraction of the rate that most workers were required to pay, despite earning millions. They have also renewed their commitment to raising the minimum wage.
Yet many party activists, particularly among the ranks of the Republicans, are demanding major cuts in domestic programs, including those that benefit the poor and people who are about to slip through the cracks. States, strapped for cash, have moved to limit unemployment benefits and Medicaid eligibility, despite the rising numbers of citizens in their states who rely on these programs as their economic circumstances become more precarious. Voters will be required to assess how much they value government assistance for the needy, and the extent to which they are willing to pay for it (in terms of higher taxes for the wealthy, higher taxes for corporations, higher deficits, or some combination of the above).
And as the poor remain, the American promise remains, a promise that indeed sustains the hope that a better life awaits for all, and that, as the political theorist John Rawls once conjectured, those who are the least advantaged will nonetheless still benefit from the just, fair society that beckons us onward.
See also Keynesian Economics; Prosperity Issue
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Burton, C. Emory. The Poverty Debate: Politics and the Poor in America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992.
Freedland, Tom, and John Bridgeland. “A New Study on the Political Media: Poverty Is Getting More Coverage.” Spotlight on Poverty, 2008. http://spotlightonpoverty.org/spotlight-exclusives/a-new-study-on-the-political-media-by-tom-freedman-and-john-bridgeland/.
Greenwald, Glenn. “Barack Obama Is Gutting the Core Principles of the Democratic Party.” Guardian, July 27, 2011.
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Hofstadter, Richard. Social Darwinism in American Thought. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.
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