To read the article in the WSJ — go to Google and put in “Robert Rector How the war on poverty was lost” or click on the link below, when you go from Google to WSJ, you can read it for free, if you go to the WSJ directly, only suscribers can read it:
Air Conditioning, Cable TV, and an Xbox: What is Poverty in the United States Today?
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/what-is-poverty
The analysis showed that median poor households most frequently had the following 14 items: air conditioning, a clothes washer, a clothes dryer, ceiling fans, and a cordless phone.
For entertainment, these households had two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR.
In the kitchen, these poor households had a refrigerator, an oven and stove, a microwave, and a coffee maker.
Amenities in Poor Families with Children. Poor families with children have more conveniences and amenities than other poor families. In 2005, the median amenity score for poor families with children was 16. We examined all poor families with children with an amenity score of 16 to determine which items appeared most frequently in these homes.
These homes typically had both air conditioning and a personal computer.
For entertainment, they typically had cable or satellite TV, three color televisions, a DVD player, a VCR, and a video game system, such as an Xbox or Play Station.
In the kitchen, they had a refrigerator, a stove and oven, a microwave, and an automatic coffee maker.
Other amenities included a cell phone, a cordless phone, and a clothes washer.[17]
That’s rich: Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record
“Fifty years after President Johnson started a $20 trillion taxpayer-funded war on poverty, the overall percentage of impoverished people in the U.S. has declined only slightly and the poor have lost ground under President Obama.”
“When the war on poverty started, about 6 percent of children were born outside of marriage,” he said. “Today that’s 42 percent — catastrophe.”