Summary Of The Other America

Michael Harrington’s most infamous book, The Other America, brought a new perspective to an ongoing issue in America. This “other America,” is a place that no one would see on TV or in a magazine. This “other America” is the percentage of citizens around America who live below the poverty line. In America, poverty was a problem that most people overlooked. It was either overlooked because most people thought that it was a situation these people chose to be in or because people were blind to the fact of the true conditions of poverty and what it actually meant to live there. Harrington’s book bought into focus the poverty problem. The Other America took off and sold millions of copies around the nation, bringing this problem to the attention

Kennedy. After reading this book, Kennedy knew that he and his staff had to do something about the poverty program, but he did not live long enough to see it through. This left new President Lyndon B. Johnson to pick up where Kennedy left off (Tindall, 2012). In 1964, Johnson released a statement, "Our aim is not only to relieve the symptoms of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it." Johnson introduced a plan entitled the War on Poverty. This plan consisted of multiple plans Johnson hoped would help eradicate poverty. The first act was The Food Stamp Act of 1964, which made the food stamp plan permanent. The second act being The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. This program put into place federal work-study programs and Job Corps; which would help those in need of better jobs attain them. The Office of Economic Opportunity also derived from this act. The Social Security Amendments of 1965 created Medicare and Medicaid, while also making social security available to more people such as widows, retirees, and those who are disabled. The last program being The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which gave subsidies to school districts that the consisted mostly of children who were impoverished (Matthews, 2014). Since The Other America reared the War on Poverty, it was time to see if these programs would actually help the problems

While some said that the programs did not help at all, others were on the contrary. A study that was conducted in 2012 showed that the War on Poverty did in fact have a positive impact on the poverty level. This study examined what happened to the poverty level before and after the interference of the government starting in 1967. According to the study, if the government had not intervened then there would have been a rise in the number of people living in poverty. Since the level of poverty was indeed falling, there had to be some reasons as to why people felt like the programs were not doing their job. People would look at the official poverty rate, which excluded revenue sent to anti-poverty programs such as food stamps. Not seeing how much these programs have actually done for those who live in poverty, it was easy for some to feel as though these programs did not work (Matthews, 2014). The best way to accurately see if The Other America and the War on Poverty had a lasting impact on the nation, is too look at where the country is