Inspired by John Kennedy, enacted by Lyndon Johnson, and expanded by Richard Nixon, the NEA has never come close to fulfilling their hopes that American government would invest in culture as it has in science. Indeed, since Nixon left office, the agency’s budget – now just under $150 million – has fallen far short of keeping up with inflation. Though it is the single largest funder of the arts in the United States, grants from local governments for arts projects are much greater.

Moreover, a series of controversies over awards the NEA made to artists and museums for works some viewed as obscene almost led to the agency’s demise. As a result, the agency now has to operate under several restrictions, including a prohibition on support for individual artists.

This record would not have surprised those who have long thought that practical-minded democracies would not give as much encouragement to the arts as once-aristocratic countries, with their more refined tastes. Even philanthropists, such as Bill Gates, are questioning giving money to museums instead of efforts to prevent blindness or other pressing problems.

But perhaps especially in a democracy, the arts matter a great deal, and not because of their economic value, which is debatable in any case. Rather, through the arts, citizens can find ways to express themselves, build cultural bridges across what divides them, and develop their imaginations. Over fifty years, the NEA has played a modest role in these important tasks, which is reason enough for celebration – and for doing more.

Sources:

Mark Bauerlein, with Ellen Grantham, National Endowment for the Arts: A History 1965 – 2008, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D. C., 2009.

National Endowment for the Arts appropriation history

Arts Funding: “Arts Funding Snapshot: GIA’s Annual Research on Support for Arts and Culture,” Grantmakers in the Arts, 2014.

Bill Gates: “An Exclusive Interview with Bill Gates,” FT Magazine, November 1, 2013.

Entitled The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, it warned that the United States was on the verge of a “new crisis in race relations.” Using lots of data, Moynihan showed that an increasing number of African-American children were growing up in homes headed by single women. As a result, he argued, they risked entrapment in “a tangle of pathology,” living in neighborhoods with high rates of delinquency, crime, and poverty.

Moynihan, who later became a United States Senator, cited the effects of slavery, prejudice, and the economic problems of black men among the causes. While he offered no solutions, his report was the basis for President Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 graduation speech at Howard University, which called for a new and “more profound” stage of the Civil Rights movement, focused on achieving “equality as a fact” not just “equality as a right.”

Nonetheless, Moynihan’s report was widely denounced as “blaming the victim,” holding blacks responsible for their own plight. Policy experts and political leaders for over a generation disputed his analysis or avoided it, although more accept it today.

Yet, in the Baltimore neighborhood where rioting occurred, nearly 40 percent of families, containing even more children, are headed by a single parent, while the poverty-rate is twice the city’s, just as Moynihan would have expected. What the Baltimore riots show is that we are still a long way from achieving “equality as a fact,” or even knowing how to do so.

Sources:

Moynihan Report
Johnson commencement address
James T. Patterson, Freedom is Not Enough: The Moynihan Report and America’s Struggle over Black Family Life – from LBJ to Obama, Basic Books, 2010.
Baltimore (Sandtown) demographics

However, a closer look shows that the United States has made progress in fighting poverty and offers lessons about what should be done to do better.

Poverty itself has fallen substantially. According to a more comprehensive measure than the official one, 26 percent of Americans were poor in 1967. In 2012, 16 percent were.

The demographics of poverty have changed too. When Johnson sounded his battle-cry, elderly and retired people were more than twice as likely to be poor as those of working age. Today, their poverty-rates are about the same.

In 1966, over forty percent of African Americans were poor. By 2012, little more than one-quarter were. The poverty-rate among whites was less than half that among blacks, though slightly higher than in the Johnson years.

Less encouraging: Poverty among children has been rising and falling since the 1960’s. It now stands at about 20 percent, above the adult rate.

The percentage of Hispanics who are poor has also been rising. Since the early 1970’s, half the increase in poverty reflected the growth of the Hispanic population.

Proposals that do not address the status of the nation’s fastest-growing minority-group are unlikely to do much to help the poor. Nor will avoiding the difficult issue that has left so many children in poverty: The growth of female-headed families since the 1960’s.

By tackling these issues, we can continue to make progress in reducing poverty.

Sources

“Trends in Poverty with an Anchored Supplemental Poverty Measure”  (Chistopher Wimer)

“Who’s poor in America? 50 years into the ‘War on Poverty,’ a data portrait” (Pew Research Center)