In determining who is involved in the War on Poverty it becomes a very tricky and somewhat controversial issue. According the Census Bureau (as of 2008) there are approximately 40 million Americans living in poverty. (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty08.html) It is clear that the number of poor people is extremely high, yet according to researchers that number could very well be increasing due to the Great Recession. The War on Poverty has been a strain on our country for many years and still continues today. President Lyndon B. Johnson put the war in bold terms. "Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it," he said in his 1964 State of the Union address. Obviously the War on Poverty is still currently ongoing, thus, America still is facing this problem. The actual sides of this "war" are undefined boundaries because there are no true sides, unlike a typical war. Evidently, one side of this war would be those living at or below the poverty line which means an individual having an income of approximately $20,000 per year or less according to the Census Bureau.
On the basis of world poverty, the numbers are more staggering than just in the United States. But ignoring poverty is worse than dealing with it poorly. All governments have taken certain measures to try and prevent poverty from expanding yet it continues. When is comes to sides, the government is the opposing side. Poverty is the problem trying to be fought for, yet poor people can hardly fight for their cause because they do not have the means to overcome.
