- POVERTY -
Economic Opportunity Act (1964)
The Economic Opportunity Act (1964) was started in efforts to build the Great Society. This act helped create a series of programs, such as Head Start, a program to prepare disadvantaged preschoolers for kindergarten, and Job Corps. and Upward Bound, made to help provide the younger generation with training and employment. These programs were to alleviate poverty and spur economic growth in improvement areas, having the poverty rate drop 7.7% 9 years after the act was created. In the end, this act helped support the left perspective's argument of helping those struggling.
Image President Lyndon Johnson and first lady Lady Bird Johnson, in Inez, Ky., in April 1964 at the home of Tom Fletcher, a father of eight who told the president he had been out of work for nearly two years. The president visited the Appalachian area in Eastern Kentucky to see conditions firsthand and declare his War on Poverty from the Fletcher porch. (AP)...
“…this program will show the way to new opportunities for millions of our fellow citizens. It will provide a lever with which we can begin to open the door to our prosperity for those who have been kept outside.”
~ Lyndon B. Johnson