Fifty years have passed since President Johnson first declared a War on Poverty in his 1964 State of the Union address. While many of the programs that emerged from this national commitment are now taken for granted, the nation would be unrecognizable to most Americans if they had never been enacted.
➷ It had a positive effect on American communities. Federal funds were sent to communities that were struggling in order to attack unemployment, as well illiteracy. The War on Poverty did manage to reduce poverty levels in some American communities.
