Winning or Losing the War on Poverty?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2014/01/23/why-we-lost-the-war-on-poverty/

This article by John Goodman explains why the “War on Poverty” is lost. He starts off by explaining what the poverty rate in America could be if Americans would have followed the trend of economic growth. His statistics illustrate a drastic decrease in poverty using that trend. America obviously hasn’t followed this trend of economic growth and that’s what the rest of the article explains along with a description of the experiment social scientists conducted to prove the welfare state could be successful. The experiments disproved the theory of a successful welfare state. To Goodman, the goal of a successful war on poverty is having individuals support themselves WITHOUT the help of the government. Goodman also believes the four things needed to not be poor is a high school diploma, a job, a marriage, and kids after marriage, but not before. I don’t agree that the ingredients to not being poor are so simple but I can see where Goodman is coming from. I agree with success with the war on poverty being classified as supporting yourself without the government’s aid as well.