Despite being the world's dominant economy and the only remaining world superpower, it is surprising to note that poverty still exists in the United States. The US Census Bureau places the official poverty rate at 12.7 percent, an increase from the 2003 figures. This translates to 37 million people living in poverty in the United States. More disturbing, the median poverty rate rises to 17.8 percent for children under the age of 18 (US Census Bureau).
             It is shameful that such poverty continues in the United States. This letter therefore examines the factors behind poverty in the United States and how this poverty is distributed across the population. Towards the end, this letter then looks at how your predecessors President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and President Lyndon B. Johnson have created anti-poverty programs. The lessons from these programs have significant implications on how to address present-day poverty in the United States.
             A historical study of poverty in the United States should include the programs instituted by Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt, after all, took office at a time of massive domestic poverty. The stock market crash had ushered in the Great Depression. In the United States, farmers were losing land, workers were losing jobs and the elderly had no means to provide for their needs (Rothbard, 257-277). The mood of the general public was permeated with widespread despair and hopelessness. Furthermore, much of Europe was descending into dictatorships, with the rise of Adolph Hitler's National Socialist Party in Germany and the fascist Benito Mussolini in Italy. It was thus a period where the domestic economy lay in shambles and democratic institutions abroad were being torn down.
             However, amid such a climate, Roosevelt then embarked on the "best kind of building – the building of great public projects for the benefit of the public and with the definite objective of building hu...