America's Biggest Issues: Welfare

When President Lyndon Johnson launched his War on Poverty in the 1960s, he pledged to eliminate poverty in America. But more than five decades, several welfare programs, and $25 trillion later, the welfare system has largely failed the poor.

The Heritage Foundation’s Genevieve Wood explains that the United States currently spends about a trillion dollars a year on over 90 different federal, state, and local welfare programs. Yet around 12 percent of Americans are still considered poor.

We are clearly spending a lot of money so why do we still have such a high poverty rate?