During this 50th anniversary year of the War on Poverty, that effort is being called a "colossal flop" because, 1: it has cost taxpayers a whopping $22 trillion but, 2: around 14 percent of Americans are still poor. In fact, we were doing pretty good at whittling away at poverty and the War on Poverty seemed to have stopped the progress dead.
The welfare state has undermined self-sufficiency by discouraging work and penalizing marriage. When the War on Poverty began seven percent of children were born outside marriage. Today, 42 percent of children are. By eroding marriage, the welfare state has made many Americans less capable of self-support than they were when the War on Poverty began.
Depends on what the real goal of the program was. If it was to increase dependence on government and make the welfare state a permanent part of the landscape, I'd say it's been a spectacular success.
