The condemnation of the Moynihan Report was so severe that liberals, sociologists and researchers responded by
- avoiding even mentioning race when discussing behavioral problems among the poor,
- emphasizing racism as the cause of any such behavior,
- denying that the behavior (e.g., decreased labor-force attachment, increase in single-parenthood, even the increase in drug use) was inappropriate, or even
- denying that the behavior existed.
Anyone who dared talk about a "culture of poverty"
6 was so viciously attacked that research simply stopped.
Lyndon B. Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" early in his presidency, significantly increasing public spending on poverty, availability of services, and growth in benefits available to the poor, especially to the elderly poor. In today's political climate, the War on Poverty is vilified as an utter failure, but many of its programs—Headstart, food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, higher social security benefits, increases in disability benefits, Legal Aid, the Job Corps and others—were much more successful than is commonly realized. Between 1959 and 1979, the poverty rate among fully employed blacks went through 43% to 16%. The War on Poverty was especially successful among the elderly as their poverty rate was cut by two-thirds.
But the War on Poverty was stunted and ultimately cut short by the War in Vietnam. Few poverty programs were fully implemented and funding was curtailed in almost all programs. Despite the success with the elderly, overall poverty increased during the next two decades, primarily due to the major economic changes occurring worldwide.
During the seventies, the forces within the now-fully-formed black ghetto intensified. Since there were no jobs, the illicit drug industry found a fertile field in which to grow new employees. And with the drugs came the violence, especially with the rise of gun sales in the 1980s.
Liberals were in denial, refusing even to notice this new phenomenon in the cities for fear of criticizing African Americans. Middle America, of course, was watching television and reading the newspapers, and the behavior changes in the black ghetto were not only obvious but also frightening. Since liberals wouldn't acknowledge those changes, they were marginalized in the debate and the only voices average Americans heard were those who blamed the poor for their poverty. So, the conservative view (that focused almost exclusively on individual characteristics as a cause of poverty) was essentially unopposed until the black sociologist William Julius Wilson began writing in the mid-80s.
The conservatives (most importantly, Charles Murray in
Losing Ground7 in 1983) also added the new argument that the liberal welfare policies of the Great Society programs had worsened poverty. Given that one couldn't do much about cultural traditions, family structures, or individual character, their arguments strongly bolstered the conservative attack of social spending in the 1980s, which has continued in the 90s as "welfare reform."
The mood of the country hardened against the ghetto. Poverty was increasing and the War on Poverty was declared a failure, forgetting that it had been more a skirmish than a war. By the 1980s, government programs for the poor were being drastically curtailed, and society was moving toward
controlling the ghetto rather than helping it.
The "black ghetto" that we know today had been found.
Footnotes
6 The "culture of poverty" was a term introduced by sociologist Oscar Lewis in the late 1950s implying that certain groups had culturally induced behaviors that precipitated their poverty.
7 Murray, Charles,
Losing Ground.
