Moynihan, Daniel Patrick

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003) shaped urban and poverty policy in the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, eventually serving in the Senate for 24 years.

Raised in New York City, educated at Tufts University (B.A., 1948, Ph.D., 1961), Moynihan served as assistant to New York Governor Averell Harriman (1955–1958), then taught briefly at Syracuse and Cornell universities. He combined his analysis of New York's Irish community with the work of sociologist Nathan Glazer in the coauthored Beyond the Melting Pot in 1963. The book emphasized the persistence of ethnoreligious identities and conflicts in urban politics, contrary to the model of assimilation.

Moynihan served in the U.S. Labor Department from 1961 to 1965, primarily as assistant secretary of labor for policy planning and research. He served on task forces to draft President John F. Kennedy's antipoverty initiative of 1963 and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, including the community action program, which sought “maximum feasible participation” by the residents in affected areas. In 1965, Moynihan wrote a policy paper entitled “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” The so-called Moynihan Report became one of the most polarizing documents in 1960s' urban policy.

Citing the cumulative effects of both past discrimination and ongoing prejudice, Moynihan warned of a looming racial crisis: An entrenched cycle of poverty had developed, and the family structure in poor African American urban neighborhoods was crumbling; government action would be necessary to correct it, he thought. Moynihan relied heavily on the work of sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, who had emphasized the effects of family breakdown in the black community since the 1930s. Although not primarily a paper offering policy solutions, the Moynihan report called for national action to tackle the issue of unemployment, especially for males.

From 1965 to 1969, Moynihan directed the Harvard-MIT Joint Center for Urban Studies and convened seminars on race and poverty at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. During that time, he became increasingly disappointed with U.S. social policy, writing a sharply critical assessment, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding, in 1969.

Moynihan's growing skepticism toward social science in public policy persuaded President Nixon to invite the lifelong Democrat into his administration. Although lingering resentment of the Moynihan report prompted civil rights groups to block his appointment as secretary of housing and urban development, Moynihan was named director of the Urban Affairs Council and counselor to the president. Moynihan again alienated racial liberals when word leaked that he had recommended Nixon neglect racial issues for a period. Moynihan nevertheless helped reset the course for a national urban policy. Citing a paucity of results from the many federal programs, he encouraged decentralization and market-modeled incentive systems. He left the cabinet in 1970 but continued to advise the president until 1973.

Urban issues played a subsidiary role in Moynihan's subsequent career, which included ambassadorships to India (1973–1975) and the United Nations (1975–1976). As U.S. senator for New York from 1977 to 2001, Moynihan represented the nation's largest metropolitan center; yet, when not in Washington, Moynihan usually spent time on his farm in upstate New York.

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