Page 3 - Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality

Letter from Deborah N. Archer, Co-Director of the Impact Center for Public Interest Law
During his State of the Union address in January 1964, President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed, “[t]his administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.” Many battles were joined: the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which created Medicare and Medicaid; the Food Stamp Act of 1964; the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created Job Corps, Head Start, and the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA); and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
There can be no doubt that initiatives like Social Security, food stamps, and Medicare have fundamentally changed the lives of millions of Americans for the better. And yet more than 45 million Americans continue to live below the poverty line, and the gap between them and the rich are evidence of a new Gilded Age. Is it true, as President Ronald Reagan once pessimistically said, that “we fought a war on poverty and poverty won”?
Fifty years after President Johnson’s call to arms, we are still fiercely fighting that war. Even as advocates struggle to challenge growing economic inequality and the undeniable role that race, ethnicity, gender, segregation, and criminal status play in the perpetuation of poverty, we should recognize and celebrate the progress we have made and the legacy and spirit of the War on Poverty that lives on. In many ways, the War on Poverty can feel a failure only because the challenge President Johnson took on—the eradication of poverty—was so large.
On April 17, 2015, the Impact Center for Public Interest Law at New York Law School hosted a symposium entitled “Tackling Economic Inequality” to bring together policymakers, advocates, academics, and community members to explore some of the causes and solutions to this growing problem. We are publishing the essays collected in this volume, written by leading social justice advocates, to continue to stimulate conversation on this critically important issue.
All my best,
Deborah N. Archer
Co-Director of the Impact Center for Public Interest Law Professor of Law, New York Law School