Great Society Programs

The Great Society programs were a set of wide-scale domestic policies and programs implemented in the 1960s under President Lyndon Johnson. The two overarching goals of the programs were to end poverty and to promote racial equality. The Great Society focused on a variety of social issues including housing, health care, and education. The most notable set of programs were those prescribed to fight the War on Poverty. On January 8, 1964, President Johnson announced an “unconditional war on poverty” during his State of the Union address, a declaration made in response to the United States’ 19-percent poverty rate.

The War on Poverty created a number of programs for low-income Americans, including Head Start, Medicaid, Medicare, and the Food Stamp Program. The Economic Opportunity Act of ...