Johnson’s Plan To Fight Poverty

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30393, 18 March 1964, Page 17

Johnson’s Plan To Fight Poverty

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) WASHINGTON, March 16.

President Johnson today sent Congress a broad, 970 milliondollar programme to achieve “total victory” in a national war on poverty in the United States.

He said in a special message to the Senate and the House of Representatives that the drive against poverty would “show the way to new opportunities for millions of our fellow citizens. “There are millions of Americans—one fifth of our people—who have no share in the abundance which has been granted to most of us. and on whom the gates of opportunity have been closed,” Mr Johnson said. Mr Johnson said the programme, to be headed by Mr Sargent Shriver, director of the Peace Corps, would be implemented by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. which he submitted to Congress together with his message. "The new programme 1 propose is within our means,” he said. "Its cost of 970 mil-

lion dollars is 1 per cent of our national budget—and every dollar I am requesting for this programme is already included in the Budget I sent to Congress in January.”

The President said the act provided these five basic opportunities:— (1) It would give almost 500.000 underprivileged young Americans the opportunity to develop skills, continue education, and find useful work.

(2) It would give every community the opportunity to develop a comprehensive plan to fight its own poverty—and the Federal Government would finance up to 90 per cent of the cost for the first two years. (3) It would give skilled and dedicated Americans an opportunity to enlist as volunteers in the war against poverty, so that if a state or community requested aid they would be recruited and sent by

the Government to help. (4) It would give many worker* and farmers “the

opportunity to break through particular harriers which bar their escape from poverty.”

(5) It would give the entire nation a chance to make a concerted attack on poverty through establishment, under the President's direction, of an office of economic opportunity.

The most dramatic of Mr Johnson's proposals was his scheme to help almost 500,000 young Americans by creating a jobs corps, a work-training programme, and a work study programme.

The National Job Corps, he said, would enlist 100,000 young men between the ages of 16 and 21, who would serve for two years, entering more than 100 camps and centres to work on conservation projects and receive educational training. The work-training programme would provide work and training in hospitals and community activities for 200,000 men and women in the same 16-21 age group. Finally, the work-study programme would provide Federal funds for part-time jobs for 140,000 young Americans unable now to go to college because they could not afford