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p It is becoming increasingly difficult for the apologists of capitalism to conceal behind satisfactory average figures the real situation in which the working people of the USA find themselves. Quite a number of authoritative studies have been published in recent years which have brought out the growing social differentiation, and the poverty and severe privation suffered by a rather large part of the country’s 53 population. Studies by sociologists Harrington and Bagdikian; Wisconsin University Professor Lampman; former chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and head of the Conference on Economic Progress Leon Keyserling; Harvard University Professor Kolko; Census Bureau economist Miller; University of Massachusetts Professor Seligman, and others, all reveal a dismal picture concealed behind the facade of the "affluent society".  [53•1 

p The harsh facts about the real situation of US working people shatter the notorious propaganda myths about " people’s capitalism”, the "democratisation of capital" and the "income revolution”. They show that the working class’s share of the national income is declining and that the gap between the incomes of the small group of people standing at the top rung of the social ladder and the incomes of the great majority of the people is widening.

p Figures printed by US Census Bureau economist Herman Miller in his book, Rich Man, Poor Man, published in January 1964, show that for decades 20 per cent of American families with the lowest incomes received only about 5 per cent of the total national income.  [53•2 

p The American system of inequality has displayed an oppressive tenacity in the last two decades, wrote Michael Harrington in 1968. And the social injustice "is not a product of the presidential psyche nor of faulty logic, but a coherent, consistent feature of our social structure”. "The nation’s statesmen proclaim that they seek only to abolish war, hunger and ignorance in the world and then follow policies which 54 make the rich richer, the poor poorer and incite the globe to violence.”  [54•1 

p The following figures taken from official statistics point up the tremendous differentiation in personal income distribution in the USA. In 1966, while 20 per cent of the American families with the lowest incomes got only 5.4 per cent of the national income, 20 per cent of the rich families got 40.7 per cent, and 5 per cent of the richest—14.8 per cent.  [54•2 

p The big income gap, which shows no tendency to narrow as the years go by, increased the urgency of the problem of "the other America”, as Harrington put it—the America of the poor and unfortunate 40 to 50 million citizens who have lived, and are living today, in poverty.

p In the early 1960s the poverty level—the point at which poverty begins—as determined by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, was an annual income of $3,000 for a family of four, and for single people—no less than $1,500 (before taxes and at 1962 prices). According to criteria worked out in early 1965 by the Department of Health, Education & Welfare (taking into account such factors as size of family, the age of the head of the family, living conditions in rural areas, etc.), the limits were broken down in more detail—from $1,000 for an elderly man living alone on a farm, to a little over $5,000 for a family of seven. A little arithmetic will show at what a modest figure the official subsistence minimum was set: the $3,130 a year set for a family of four would give each member only 70 cents a day for food and $1.40 for other needs, such as shelter, medical care, transportation, etc.

p In his book Progress or Poverty: the USA at the Crossroads, L. Keyserling used the method for determining poverty worked out by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and came to the conclusion that in 1963 about 34.5 million Americans did not have an adequate income.  [54•3  In a study published in The Nation, Census Bureau economist Herman Miller, using the method for determining poverty given by 55 the Department of Health, Education & Welfare, came to a similar conclusion.  [55•1  The poor, according to their definition, made up about one-fifths of the population; of these, 30 million lived in families and 5 million lived alone.

p Here are the basic data cited by Miller on families living in poverty: 

p —The aggregate income of the 7 million families and 5 million single persons in 1963 was $12,000 million less than needed to satisfy their minimum needs. This figure, according to Census Bureau data, comprises about 3 per cent of the national money income.

p —About 2 million poor families had no father, and almost half of them were not in a position to satisfy their minimum needs.

p —About 2 million heads of families had full time jobs the year round.

p —About 1.5 million heads of families worked full time, but not the year round. Poverty in these families stemmed from little or no income during periods of unemployment and the absence of means of subsistence in times of illness. Thus, in 50 per cent of the poor families, the head of the family worked a full day, but his annual income was too low to maintain his family.

p —According to official figures, about 2 million (25 per cent) of the poor families were dark-skinned. About onethird of all the young and middle-aged poor and a large part of the chronically poor were non-whites, although nonwhites made up only 11.8 per cent of the population.

p —About 20 per cent of the country’s poor are senior citizens.

p The situation is especially serious for the children in poor families. President Johnson admitted in a message to Congress on February 8, 1967, that 5.5 million children up to 6 years of age and 9 million up to 17 years of age live in families that are so poor that they cannot provide them with normal food and shelter.

p Permanent residents of "the other America" are working blacks, who make up one of the most oppressed and neediest 56 strata of the American people. The black population, numbering 25 million persons, suffers severely from discrimination and segregation in employment and wages, housing, education and civil rights; a significant proportion live under conditions of perpetual privation and degradation. On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy quite frankly painted the dismal picture of the life of American blacks. "The Negro baby born in America today,” Kennedy said, "regardless of the section or the state in which he is born, has about onehalf as much chance of completing a high school as a white baby, born in the same place, on the same day; one-third as much chance of completing college; one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man; twice as much chance of becoming unemployed; about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is seven years shorter and the prospects of earning only half as much.”  [56•1 

p The report of a government commission appointed by President Johnson in the summer of 1967 to investigate the causes for black unrest cited convincing evidence that the United States is a racist society in which millions of blacks live at the very bottom of society without any hope for the future. The report pointed out that in 1966, 32 per cent of all the black families in the country were poor according to the official classification, compared with white families, among which only 13 per cent were so classified.  [56•2 

p The income gap between the black and white population has not diminished since then; in fact, it has shown a tendency to increase. According to data cited by Roy Wilkins, Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, "the gap [between the median family income for Negro families] and the median income of white families grew by $800 a year from 1947-1966. In 1947, the gap between whites and blacks was only $2,174 a year. This is bad enough, but in 1966 the gap had grown to $3,036 a year.”  [56•3 

57

p The special study conducted by the above-mentioned President’s commission showed that in many cities the situation for blacks is worsening. In the Hough section of Cleveland, for example, the average income for black families fell by about $700 between 1960 and 1965. During the same period, the percentage of poor families in the Bedford, Stuyvesant and Harlem sections of New York rose from 28 to 35 per cent. The percentage of poor families in the black districts of Chicago grew from 33 to 37 per cent during the same period.  [57•1 

p Members of other non-white national minorities in the United States—the Indians, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and others—live in no better, in many cases even worse, circumstances. Of the 550,000 Indians in the country, 380,000 live on reservations with an average annual income of $1,800 per family—less than the average income in black families and about a quarter of the average figure for the United States as a whole.  [57•2  Also living in a state of constant need, poverty and privation are the Puerto Ricans, concentrated in large cities, and the Mexicans, who are basically low-paid agricultural workers in the southern regions of the country. But even poorer are the unfortunate and persecuted aborigines of Alaska. The annual income for many of them never goes above $500.

p Agricultural workers and workers on small farms stand on one of the lowest rungs of the social ladder in the United States. As pointed out in a special AFL-CIO statement, they are the poorest and most oppressed people in America. Their average income is less than $1,000 a year, and they find employment for an average of 140 days per year.  [57•3 

p The average wage for agricultural workers in 1963 was less than 90 cents an hour. It was 68 cents an hour in the southern states, which accounted for over half of all those employed in agriculture. The highest average hourly wage was in California—$1.30. If an agricultural worker was lucky enough to get the high wage and if he was again lucky 58 enough to find work the year round, even then his average annual income would be less than $3,000,  [58•1  that is, lower than the officially recognised poverty line. Agricultural workers receive considerably lower wages than industrial workers, and the gap between the two has a tendency to grow even further. In 1910-1914, the average hourly wage of agricultural workers amounted to 67 per cent of the average wage of factory workers. By 1945, it had shrunk to 47 per cent and by 1963 to 36 per cent.  [58•2 

p Because of extremely low wages and chronic unemployment, the standard of living among agricultural workers is significantly lower than the average for the country. Almost half of the poorest segment of the US population are in agricultural regions. According to data cited by the Democratic Administration’s Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman, over 5,100,000 families of agricultural workers and farmers live in poverty—a total of about 15,000,000 people.  [58•3  Migrant workers, who make up one-fourth of the country’s seasonal agricultural workers, live in extremely difficult circumstances, with average annual incomes considerably lower than those of other agricultural workers. Many migrant workers move to industrial centres after losing hope of finding work in the agricultural regions, only to swell the already overpopulated big city slums.

p The recognised centres of poverty in the United States are areas of so-called chronic depression, or areas with a high and steady rate of unemployment, and also with generally low family incomes. Such areas are divided into two groups. In Group A are areas where the general unemployment rate is 6 per cent or more, or with an average annual rate of unemployment exceeding the national rate by 50 per cent during three out of the four preceding years, by 75 per cent for two out of three years and by 100 per cent for a period of one year out of two. In Group B are areas with low general and farmer incomes, and also microregions with a high, stable rate of unemployment.

p The number of depressed areas increased sharply in the 59 early 1960s, embracing hundreds of large and small cities and workers’ settlements with a total population running into tens of millions. In March 1963, there were 18 “large”, 103 “smaller” and 54 "very small" areas of chronic depression. In May 1971 (when the unemployment rate for the country went up to 6 per cent), the number of areas classified by the Department of Labour as "areas of substantial and persistent unemployment" reached 687, the highest level since May 1962.  [59•1  There are millions of people suffering unemployment and material privation in the chronically depressed areas—"they are the forgotten Americans; the invisible poor whose lives are barren and without purpose. They are victims of social neglect and callous indifference, left to shift for themselves by the more affluent part of America.”  [59•2 

p Most of the depressed areas are in the Appalachians, a mountainous region that includes all or part of the territory of the states of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. What were formerly industrial boom areas, especially with respect to the coal mining industry, have now, as a result of automation, labour intensification and cutbacks in commodity markets, become areas of unemployment and poverty. Every third family living in the Appalachians has an income of less than $3,000 a year. In the early 1960s, about 400,000 people were officially registered as unemployed, while another 700,000 jobless persons were not even registered because they had lost all hope of finding work.  [59•3 

p The jobless inhabitants of the Appalachians and of many other of the country’s depressed areas drag out a miserable existence. Here is how American sociologist B. Bagdikian described their life in an article appearing in the Saturday Evening Post. "There is a world inside the United States where the American Dream is dying. It is a world where, 60 when it rains at night, everyone gets up to move beds away from the leaks. Where there is no electricity—but refrigerators are valued to keep food safe from rats. Where regularly at the end of the month whole families live on things like berries and bread. Where children in winter sleep on floors in burlap bags and their lung X-rays at the age of 12 look like old men’s. Where students drift hungry and apathetic through school and their parents die 10 or 20 or 30 years earlier than their countrymen! These invisible Americans are the poor and they are located everywhere in the country. In a few places, there’s scarcely anyone else.”  [60•1  For millions of such Americans, the only thing left is to go on welfare, for they have lost all hope of finding work, are no longer eligible for unemployment benefits and have exhausted whatever savings they may have had.

p Data published by The Wall Street Journal show that the number of Americans who have to rely on this kind of degrading assistance increases year by year at a much faster rate than the rate of population increase for the USA as a whole. Between 1954 and 1964, the population increased from 162,000,000 to 192,000,000, i.e., it showed an 18 per cent increase. In the same period, the number of welfare recipients increased from 5,500,000 to 7,800,000—an increase of 42 per cent. More than half of these were mothers with children.  [60•2  Between 1961 and 1971, however, the number of welfare recipients in the USA had doubled from 7,200,000 to about 14,400,000.  [60•3 

The situation in certain cities or areas is much worse than in the country as a whole. In San Francisco, for example, the number of welfare recipients had almost doubled between 1954 and 1964, although the city’s population had actually decreased during that period. Figures for New York show that between 1967 and 1971, the number of people on welfare had also doubled, totalling about 1,200,000 at the end of that period, 45 per cent of whom were blacks and 40 per cent Puerto Ricans.  [60•4  In 1971, from 10 to 15 per cent of the population of many big cities were welfare recipients.

61 People on Relief  [61•1  Number of people collecting relief Per cent of area’s population Baltimore .............. 137,793 15 2 Denver ............... 51,825 10 1 New Orleans ............. 88,018 14.8 New York 1 181 310 15 0 Philadelphia ............. 288,297 14.8 St. Louis ............... 91,605 14.7 San Francisco 101 710 14 2 Washington ............. 79,412 10.5

p Although 14,000,000 Americans were receiving welfare in 1971, the actual number of people needing it was considerably larger.  [61•2  However, various rules and restrictions and the humiliating procedure involved in proving need prevent many needy people from receiving assistance.  [61•3  " Paradoxically,” a Time editorial noted, "it is the neediest who are helped least by the welfare state.” The majority of the poor reap no benefits from social security, adds the magazine.  [61•4 

p The assistance that poor people do receive is very small and falls far short of freeing them from poverty. "Few people realise,” wrote The Nation, "how shockingly low are the payments received by the 7.5 million to 8 million people who at any given time are supported by public assistance. . . .These crucial standards are in most cases below, often far 62 below, the poverty level.”  [62•1  Figures compiled by Leon Keyserling showed that in June 1964, for example, public assistance to the poor in the country as a whole amounted to $32.51 per month per person, which for a family of three came to less than $1,200 a year. Moreover, 86 per cent of such families received no other assistance besides that miserly sum, and were thus doomed to a life of hunger.

p In April 1968, a 25-member Citizens Board of Inquiry into Hunger and Malnutrition established by an organisation called the Citizens Crusade Against Poverty reported that at least 10 million Americans may be hunger victims, and that the situation among poor people was worsening. The study group found evidence of chronic hunger and malnutrition in such diverse areas as Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Des Moines and New Orleans.  [62•2  The report noted that in the 265 counties of 20 states where the study was conducted (primarily in areas of chronic depression), half of the population had to be classified as poor, and that the death rate in those areas, especially among children, was twice the national average. A special Senate committee on problems of hunger reviewed the report and concluded that the problem was extremely serious. "Hunger in the US,” wrote US News & World Report in April 1969, "is being built up as a prime issue in national politics.”  [62•3 

p In 1964, the US Government was forced by the pressure of circumstances to carry out a number of social measures "from above" in order to smooth down the sharpening class antagonisms and stem the upsurge in the working class’s economic and political struggle. Feelings of anxiety and alarm were already beginning to grip the country because of the unveiled poverty existing behind the facade of the "affluent society" and the deprivation suffered by millions of working people who had not the wherewithal to satisfy even their basic needs.

p On January 8, 1964, President Johnson, in his State of the Union Message, called poverty "a national problem”, and declared that his administration "here and now declares 63 unconditional war on poverty in America".  [63•1  About two months later, on March 16, he presented his programme to Congress. On July 29, the Senate, and on August 8, the House of Representatives, passed the Economic Opportunity Act, which came to be known as the "anti-poverty bill”.

p Johnson’s promise to put an end to poverty and "to help each and every American citizen fulfil his basic hopes" was not something new in America. As far back as 1928, on the eve of the Great Depression, President Hoover had boasted that "we in America are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.”  [63•2  With a reminder that the presidential election of November 1964 was drawing near, the US News & World Report wrote: "A reading of history shows that ‘poverty’ and its elimination for generations have been the rallying cry of politicians in both parties when seeking office.... At the same time, opposition candidates find it difficult to attack the idea of helping the poor.”  [63•3 

p The very fact that the US Congress passed an "anti- poverty bill" speaks eloquently of how far the greatest power in the capitalist world actually is from genuine “prosperity”. Yet the practical measures taken and the funds allocated to see them through proved to be extremely limited and showed a striking lack of correspondence between word and deed. President Johnson requested an expenditure of only $962.5 million for the 1964/65 fiscal year, or, according to press estimates, a total of $25 for every poor person. Despite the obvious inadequacy of the sum requested, Congress approved an appropriation of only $947.5 million.

p Public opinion concerning the administration’s programme was reflected in a New York Times editorial that said, in part, that "the Johnson programme, in its dimensions, is far short of measuring up to the President’s assurance that ’the days of the dole in our country are numbered’.... It is too 64 limited in means, too timid in ideas, even as a jumping-off point.”  [64•1  At the height of the presidential campaign in mid1964, President Johnson went even further with his promises. Speaking at the University of Michigan, he declared that the goal of his administration was to create the "Great Society" in the United States, and somewhat later, in his State of the Union Message of January 4, 1965, he outlined a series of measures designed to achieve that goal. Besides the "war on poverty”, which occupied a central place in the "Great Society”, the administration promised also to provide all US citizens with jobs and adequate housing, make improvements in education and medical care, abolish racial discrimination, reduce crime and also to take steps to control pollution and to keep America beautiful.

p Dictated by a desire to somehow prettify the exploitative capitalist system in the USA that is fast losing its prestige in the eyes of the public, the Johnson Administration programme was, in essence, merely an attempt to introduce some rather limited bourgeois-liberal reforms. In the words of Senator Fulbright, the "Great Society" was dreamed up as an "antidote to revolution”. It reflected a desire of the ruling circles to introduce reforms which would satisfy public demands to some extent and reduce the revolutionary pressure.  [64•2  Speaking ironically of President Johnson’s "new American dream”, the Chase Manhattan Bank’s economic bulletin remarked caustically that "Washington produces fashionable words and phrases as rapidly as Broadway produces popular tunes. ’Great Society’ stands high among the current favourites. .. .”  [64•3 

p Just how limited the "Great Society" programme was in fact can be seen from the following comparison. Expenditures under that programme for health, education, housing, assistance to the jobless and the poor, urban development and all the other social needs were considerably smaller than expenditures for military purposes.

65

p With respect to the escalation of the war in Vietnam, the Johnson Administration went further and further away from the loud promises made from the beginning of 1964. The President’s State of the Union Message of January 10, 1967 contained no proposals for important social legislation requiring large expenditures. For his "war on poverty" in 1968, President Johnson asked Congress to appropriate only $2,000 million out of a total budget of $135,000 million, that is, less than was being spent on the war in Vietnam in a single month.

p The administration policy also reflected the mood in Congress, the majority of whose members felt that as long as the war in Vietnam continued, the "Great Society" programme should be kept to a minimum. Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee George Mahon stated in January 1967, that his committee intended "to examine every nondefence request with considerable skepticism" in order to "weed out the tares from the wheat".  [65•1  He made it clear that by the “wheat” he meant appropriations for military programmes and by the “tares”, all non-military expenditures. Commenting on the cutback in the administration’s programme of social legislation, Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger, a well-known historian and former special assistant to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, declared with every justification that "the Great Society is now, except for token gestures, dead. The fight for equal opportunity for the Negro, the war against poverty, the struggle to save the cities, the improvement of our schools—all must be starved for the sake of Vietnam".  [65•2 

p That the Johnson Administration failed to make political capital out of the "Great Society" programme was apparent from the criticism it received over the years even from within the Democratic and Republican parties. Many Democratic Party leaders and activists, according to The Christian Science Monitor, admitted that the "Great Society" programme was, in practice, extremely ineffective.  [65•3 

p Although the initial response to the programme on the 66 part of labour unions  [66•1  and the public in general was, on the whole, positive, dissatisfaction grew as it began to be implemented, and criticism of the administration became rather trenchant. "A bag of tricks”, "a prize piece of political pornography”, was how a number of labour unions and black organisations characterised the administration’s measures.  [66•2 

p Serious abuses were revealed in the distribution of funds earmarked for the "war on poverty”, which, as The New York Times put it, had become a giant fiesta of political patronage.  [66•3  Enormous sums were spent on salaries for tens of thousands of officials connected permanently or temporarily with the Office of Economic Opportunity, an organisation that was supposed to carry out the government programme.  [66•4  The poor themselves were given no opportunity to take part either in the elaboration or the implementation of plans to fight poverty. As one community leader from Chicago noted, the President’s war on poverty "had been cruelly twisted into a war against the poor".  [66•5  The extreme dissatisfaction with the measures being taken by the government to fight poverty found clear expression in April 1966 at the second poor peoples’ congress held in Washington. The congress, which was attended by more than 800 delegates, was convoked by the Citizens Crusade Against Poverty, headed by Walter Reuther, President of the United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America. In an address highly critical of the Johnson Administration, 67 Reuther also charged that "certain forces" in Congress were calling for cutting down to an "eyedropper’s worth" funds for the war on poverty using Vietnam as a reason. He said that if a more energetic programme of action were not adopted in the fight against poverty, the embittered and desperate poor people would start looking for an answer themselves.

p Events after 1967—revolts by poor blacks in many cities throughout the country, the great poor people’s march on Washington in the summer of 1968, the massive poor peoples’ campaign against hunger and poverty launched by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the spring of 1969, and other public manifestations—show that America’s poor, disenchanted with government programmes, have taken up a resolute struggle for their economic interests and civil rights.

p In a situation where the giant monopoly corporations intensify their attack upon the vital interests of the working class, while the government, carrying out the will of the monopoly bourgeoisie, shifts the burden of growing military expenditures connected with the escalation of the war in Vietnam on to the shoulders of the working people, all the demagogy about building a "Great Society" became patently absurd. "We do not believe the measures in the Great Society concept are realistic in an economy based on war production,” declared Gus Hall, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA, in January 1965. "A Great Society and a War Society are two opposites.”  [67•1 

Increased exploitation of the working class has lead to the further intensification of the economic struggle. Defending its vital interests and rights and putting up stiff resistance to the monopolies’ offensive, the working class and its organised sector, the labour unions, come into increasingly sharp and frequent confrontation with the bourgeois state apparatus which more and more openly acts as the guarantor of the interests of monopoly capital.