Overview

The Great Society was a set of domestic programs promoted by President Lyndon B. Johnson and Democrats in Congress during his presidency from 1963-1969. Some of the programs were designed to eliminate poverty and racial injustice; others provided for federal involvement in education, medical care, environmental protection, and arts and culture. Some historians consider the Great Society to be the peak of liberalism in the United States and the high-watermark of governmental expansion in the nation's history, often compared to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s and 40s.

Johnson's Task Forces

The Democratic majority in Congress allowed Johnson to make sweeping legislative changes. Fourteen task forces composed of academics and experts were appointed by President Johnson to craft New Frontier legislation and develop foreign policy, each studying one aspect of United States society. Domestic issues were the predominant focus, with only one task force dedicated to foreign policy. Other policy areas addressed included agriculture, civil rights, education, efficiency and economy, health, income maintenance policy, preservation of natural beauty, transportation, and urban problems.

The War on Poverty

The most ambitious and controversial part of the Great Society was its initiative to end poverty. The Kennedy Administration had been contemplating a federal effort against poverty, and Johnson, who had observed extreme poverty as a school-teacher in Texas, adopted Kennedy's program. In the first months of his presidency, Johnson declared an "unconditional war on poverty," with the lofty goal of eliminating hunger and deprivation from American life. The War on Poverty's programs reflected a consensus among the Johnson administration that poverty was best addressed through the creation of economic opportunity, rather than by simply raising incomes, as Johnson emphasized in speeches around the country. The approach thus focused on education, job training, and community development.

Programs

The War on Poverty spawned dozens of programs, among them:

• the Job Corps, which held the purpose of helping disadvantaged youth develop marketable skills;
• the Neighborhood Youth Corps, established to give poor urban youths work experience and encourage them to stay in school;
• Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), a domestic version of the Peace Corps, which placed concerned citizens with community-based agencies to work toward empowerment of the poor;
• the Model Cities Program for urban redevelopment;
• Upward Bound, which assisted poor high school students entering college;
• a variety of legal services for the poor;
• the Food Stamp Act of 1964, which expanded the federal food stamp program;
• the Community Action Program, which initiated local Community Action Agencies charged with helping the poor become self-sufficient; and 
• Project Head Start, which offered preschool education for poor children.

In addition, funding was provided for the establishment of community health centers to expand access to health care, while major amendments were made to Social Security in 1965 and 1967 which significantly increased benefits, expanded coverage, and established new programs to combat poverty and raise living standards. In addition, average Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) payments were 35% higher in 1968 than in 1960; however, they still remained insufficient and unevenly dispersed.

The Economic Opportunity Act

The centerpiece of the War on Poverty was the Economic Opportunity Act (EOA) of 1964, which created an Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to oversee a variety of community-based anti-poverty programs. The OEO was responsible for administering most of the War on Poverty programs, including VISTA, Job Corps, Head Start, Legal Services, and the Community Action Program.

Public Education

The Great Society included federal educational programs, including several programs directed at primary and secondary education. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, designed by Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel, allotted more than $1 billion to help schools purchase materials and start special education programs at schools with high concentrations of low-income children. The Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963 authorized more federal aid for universities in 5 years than the Land Grant College had in the previous century. This act was followed by the Higher Education Act of 1965, which increased federal money to universities, created scholarships and low-interest loans for students, and established a national Teacher Corps to provide teachers to poverty-stricken areas of the United States.

The OEO launched Project Head Start as an eight-week summer program in 1965. The project was designed to help end poverty by creating a program for preschool children from low-income families that addresses emotional, social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs. President Johnson also launched Project Follow Through, implemented in 1967, to follow up with graduates of the Head Start program. The policy trains disadvantaged and at-risk youth and has provided more than two million disadvantaged young people with integrated academic, vocational, and social skills training. Job Corps continues to help 70,000 youths annually at 122 Job Corps centers throughout the country. Besides vocational training, many Job Corps also offer GED programs as well as high school diplomas and programs to get students into college.

Healthcare

The Great Society left an enduring legacy in its healthcare programs. The Social Security Act of 1965 authorized Medicare, which provided federal funding for the medical treatment of elderly and disabled Americans. The program made benefits available to all Americans over age 65, regardless of need, and linked payments to the existing private insurance system. The Social Security Act also created Medicaid, a program funding health care for low-income Americans. In 1966, all welfare recipients began receiving medical care through Medicaid.

The Arts and Communications

The Great Society also created programs to benefit the arts. In 1964, the National Commission on the Humanities released a report arguing that the nation's emphasis on science endangered the study of the humanities. In September of 1965, Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act, creating both the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Richard Nixon dramatically expanded funding for NEH and NEA.

The Great Society also first established public television. The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 chartered the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a private, non-profit corporation and provided federal aid. The CPB initially collaborated with the pre-existing National Educational Television system, but in 1969 it started the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The CPB soon undertook a study of public radio, which led to the establishment of National Public Radio (NPR), a public radio system under the terms of the amended Public Broadcasting Act.

The Environment

Discussing his administration's environmental policies, Lyndon Johnson argued that:

The air we breathe, our water, our soil and wildlife, are being blighted by poisons and chemicals which are the by-products of technology and industry. The society that receives the rewards of technology, must, as a cooperating whole, take responsibility for [their] control. To deal with these new problems will require a new conservation. We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities. Our conservation must be not just the classic conservation of protection and development, but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation.

This was a new way of looking at environmental protection at the time, as previous measures had been restricted to merely conserving untouched resources, rather than considering pollution of nature as a whole. Environmental legislation enacted during Johnson's presidency included:

• Clear Air, Water Quality and Clean Water Restoration Acts and Amendments
• Wilderness Act of 1964
• Land and Water Conservation Act of 1965
• Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965
• Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act of 1965
• National Historic Preservation Act of 1966
• Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966
• National Trails System Act of 1968
• Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968
• Aircraft Noise Abatement Act of 1968
• National Environmental Policy Act of 1969

Labor

The Great Society also included policies related to labor. Amendments made to the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in 1964 extended the prevailing wage provisions to cover fringe benefits, and several increases were made to the federal minimum wage. The EOA fought rural poverty by providing low-interest loans to those wishing to improve their farms or start businesses. EOA funds were also used to provide housing and education for migrant farm workers. Other legislation created jobs in Appalachia, one of the poorest regions in the United States, and brought programs to American Indian reservations. One of EOA’s successes was the Rough Rock Demonstration School on the Navajo Reservation that, while respecting Navajo traditions and culture, also trained people for careers and jobs outside the reservation.

Assessing the Great Society 

Since the launch of the Great Society and the War on Poverty, there has been a contentious debate over its impact. Historians and economists try to assess the effects on poverty rates and the economy, with many competing analyses put forward. Some argue Johnson's policies succeeded and significantly reduced poverty rates. Others argue the policies had negative effects on the economy and led to more poverty in the long-term. 

Effects on Poverty Rates

The poverty rate is defined as the percentage of Americans living below the "absolute poverty line," which is defined by the Office of Health and Human Services as the threshold at which families can afford the basic necessities of food, shelter, and clothing. For example, the 2011 poverty line was a yearly income of $22,350 for a family of four. 

The War on Poverty coincided with a reduction in poverty rates. The United States government began keeping comprehensive records of the poverty rate in 1958, and the poverty rate had been declining when the War on Poverty was launched in 1964 – it fell from 22.4% in 1959 to 19% in 1964. The poverty rate declined further after the implementation of the War on Poverty, hitting a low point of 11.1% in 1973. That year, President Nixon dismantled the Office of Economic Opportunity (the agency in charge of the War on Poverty's key programs), transferring many of its programs to other agencies. The poverty rate has fluctuated between 11% and 15.2% since then. 

Poverty among Americans between ages 18–64 has fallen only marginally since 1966, from 10.5% then to 10.1% today. Poverty has significantly fallen among Americans under 18 years old from 23% in 1964 down to less than 17%, although it rose to 20% in 2009. The most dramatic decrease in poverty was among Americans over 65, which fell from 28.5% in 1966 to 10.1% today. In 2004, more than 35.9 million, or 12% of Americans, including 12.1 million children, were considered to be living in poverty, with an average growth of almost one million per year.

Debates and Critiques

Even noting the decline in poverty rates, there is still disagreement about the effects of the War on Poverty and the Great Society. From President Johnson's first speeches about the Great Society, critics charged the policies were an attempt to institute socialism. Some economists, including Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, have argued that Johnson's policies actually had a negative impact on the economy because of their interventionist nature. Adherents of this school of thought recommend that the best way to fight poverty is not through government spending but through economic growth. They would explain the reduction in the poverty rate as caused by the economic growth of the 1950's and 60's, or as a short-term effect of policies, later counter-balanced by negative long-term effects of the policies.

The War on Poverty's attention to African Americans led to a backlash among many white Americans. The policies created the perception of favoritism among many economically advantaged whites, along with resentment for having to "foot the bill" for services to the poor. This perception led to diminished support for many welfare programs, especially those targeted to specific groups and neighborhoods (primarily African Americans, immigrants, and other people of color). Responses to these criticisms pointed out that anti-poverty programs are necessary not for the well-being of the poor, but for the highest American principle of justice. In this argument, economic inequality leads to inequality of opportunity so severe that Americans cannot ignore it and still claim to be a free and equal society.

The Great Society remains controversial, particularly among conservatives. Many of its programs were dismantled by later Republican administrations. Deregulation, growing criticism of the welfare state, and an ideological shift to conservatism in the 1980s and 1990s culminated in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which, in the words of President Clinton, "end[ed] welfare as we know it."

President Johnson at the University of Michigan Commencement Ceremony, 1964

In his commencement address at the University of Michigan, Johnson proclaimed his vision of a "Great Society."