14 - The War on Poverty and the Poor in Sunflower

Summary

The struggle with poor support has been a subtext for much that passes as race politics in the early 21st century US. Sunflower County’s woes are a snapshot of the value of that debate to materially impoverished children and single moms who struggled alone in the TANF era. In the TANF and post-TANF eras, in rural areas with large shares of blacks, poverty was and is high. Jobs were and are scarce and seasonal. Wages were and are low. Licensed quality childcare was and is negligible and unaffordable. Schools were and are segregated. Too many have been in a recession their whole lives. The War on Poverty and Great Society did not eradicate poverty in America, but during the years when the programs flourished, poverty dropped to its lowest recorded point in US history. Half a century later, in 2020, poverty rates in the US reprised the rates just after the War on Poverty. The child tax credit and the ETIC would lift families out of temporary poverty. During COVID-19 and racial crises in the United States, unemployment benefits and stimulus checks would give the poor a life raft. The old child tax credit eliminated 27 million low-income children.