Manpower and Training Problems in Combating Poverty

Poverty in the United States has been the target of successive efforts to contain it, to mitigate its effects, and finally to eradicate it.In this country the first efforts were conducted under the auspices of religious organizations which used "charity" and volunteers and the philanthropic largesse of families of substance to help "the deserving poor."In the early i9oos, the combination of social reformers, educators, and enlightened religious and lay leaders responding to mass emigration, individual exploitation, and inadequate social conditions gave impetus to the social welfare approach to poverty.During this period, private social instruments of all kinds were developed to serve the poor and mitigate their condition.For example, voluntary agencies like legal aid clinics, settlement houses, orphanages, homes for the aged, citizenship and adult education programs, mutual benefit societies and labor unions were initiated and provided many with the drive required to move out of the poverty culture.In addition, as the economy of the United States fluctuated and threw hardworking people out of the working class and into economic poverty, public agencies developed in the areas of housing, welfare, education, employment and health.These tried to lessen the shock of dependency and to develop those services which would soften the impact of recurring depressions or hard times.During this period, the social welfare field gave birth to the social work profession which either by design or by default was assigned major responsibility for caring for the social and economic failures in our American open society.The convergence of the "Civil Rights" movement with the growing inability of the developed institutions to deal with social problems and their causes-for example, increasing juvenile and adult delinquency, illegitimacy, school drop-outs, unemployment especially in the Negro minority, growth of slums, and so on-gave rise to another approach to the long battle on poverty.This response came mainly from the government and led to substantial public funds being made available to initiate a new attempt to combat and control poverty.It is not at all clear what the net results will be, and the Viet Nam war may seriously cripple the attempt; but out of what has been done up to now have emerged several concepts or principles which are important in understanding the nature of the poverty effort and the implications for manpower and training.