INTRODUCTION
nutrition programs such as WIC and food stamps (now the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP)—important as they are—are not enough without a corresponding
effort to end poverty. The only way to defeat hunger permanently is to fight poverty at the
same time, and that is what this report aims to show us how to do.
2014 is the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the War on Poverty. This was a “war” fought
largely with new and improved
social programs and with laws that
Figure i.3 SNAP Caseloads Closely Track Changes in Poverty
dismantled structures of racial
injustice that had persisted since
In millions, through December 2012
the Civil War. The civil rights move70
ment in the early 1960s was a driving
60
force that spurred government to
Individuals with incomes at 130% of poverty*
take action against poverty. At the
50
time, half of all African Americans
lived in poverty.9 But civil rights
40
leaders were demanding more than
SNAP participants
30
racial justice. At the 1963 March on
Washington for Jobs and Freedom,
20
where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
10
made his historic “I Have a Dream”
speech, one of the demands of the
0
marchers was to raise the minimum
‘85 ‘87 ‘89 ‘91 ‘93 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11
wage to $2.00, which is equivalent
Source: Dorothy Rosenbaum (March 11, 2013), “SNAP Is Effective and Efficient,” Center on
to $13.39 today.10 This demand fell
Budget and Policy Priorities. CBPP analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Census
Bureau data.
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