title: How Johnson Fought the War on Poverty: The Economics and Politics of Funding at the Office of Economic Opportunity.
abstract: This article presents a quantitative analysis of the geographic distribution of spending through the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act (EOA). Using newly assembled state- and county-level data, the results show that the Johnson administration directed funding in ways consistent with the War on Poverty's rhetoric of fighting poverty and racial discrimination: poorer areas and those with a greater share of nonwhite residents received systematically more funding. In contrast to New Deal spending, political variables explain very little of the variation in EOA funding. The smaller role of politics may help explain the strong backlash against the War on Poverty's programs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, University of Michigan, 611 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109. baileymj@umich.edu.
authors.forename: Martha J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Bailey
authors.affiliation: Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California, Lewis Hall 312, Los Angeles, California 90089-0626. nduquett@umich.edu.
authors.forename: Nicolas J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Duquette