IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v74y2014i02p351-388_00.html

How Johnson Fought the War on Poverty: The Economics and Politics of Funding at the Office of Economic Opportunity

Author

Listed:
  • Bailey, Martha J.
  • Duquette, Nicolas J.

Abstract

This article presents a quantitative analysis of the geographic distribution of spending through the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act (EOA). Using newly assembled state- and county-level data, the results show that the Johnson administration directed funding in ways consistent with the War on Poverty's rhetoric of fighting poverty and racial discrimination: poorer areas and those with a greater share of nonwhite residents received systematically more funding. In contrast to New Deal spending, political variables explain very little of the variation in EOA funding. The smaller role of politics may help explain the strong backlash against the War on Poverty's programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Bailey, Martha J. & Duquette, Nicolas J., 2014. "How Johnson Fought the War on Poverty: The Economics and Politics of Funding at the Office of Economic Opportunity," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(2), pages 351-388, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:74:y:2014:i:02:p:351-388_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050714000291/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martha J. Bailey & Andrew Goodman-Bacon, 2015. "The War on Poverty's Experiment in Public Medicine: Community Health Centers and the Mortality of Older Americans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1067-1104, March.
    2. Martha J. Bailey & John DiNardo & Bryan A. Stuart, 2021. "The Economic Impact of a High National Minimum Wage: Evidence from the 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(S2), pages 329-367.
    3. Eli, Shari & Salisbury, Laura, 2016. "Patronage Politics and the Development of the Welfare State: Confederate Pensions in the American South," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(4), pages 1078-1112, December.
    4. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew & Schmidt, Lucie, 2020. "Federalizing benefits: The introduction of Supplemental Security Income and the size of the safety net," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    5. Callais, Justin T & Geloso, Vincent, 2023. "The political economy of lighthouses in antebellum America," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    6. Martha J Bailey & Hilary Hoynes & Maya Rossin-Slater & Reed Walker, 2024. "Is the Social Safety Net a Long-Term Investment? Large-Scale Evidence From the Food Stamps Program," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(3), pages 1291-1330.
    7. Justin T. Callais & Vincent Geloso, 2023. "Intergenerational income mobility and economic freedom," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 732-753, January.
    8. Ariel Marek Pihl, 2018. "Head Start and Mothers' Work: Free Child Care or Something More?," Working Papers 18-13, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    9. Anderson, D. Mark & Charles, Kerwin Kofi & Karbownik, Krzysztof & Rees, Daniel I. & Steffens, Camila, 2025. "Civil rights protests and election outcomes: Exploring the effects of the poor people’s campaign," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    10. Jean Lacroix, 2023. "Ballots Instead of Bullets? The Effect of the Voting Rights Act on Political Violence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 764-813.
    11. Jamein Cunningham & Andrew Goodman-Bacon, 2025. "Changes in Family Structure and Welfare Participation since the 1960s: The Role of Legal Services," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 369-401, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • N12 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:74:y:2014:i:02:p:351-388_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.