Existing welfare and entitlement programs have expanded and new programs have been created over the past fifty years, following President Johnson's initiative in the 1960s. President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that America would wage an unconditional war on poverty in his State of the Union address to the United States Congress in 1964. President Johnson sought to lift millions of people out of poverty. poverty by giving Americans a fair chance to develop their skills to become competitive in the marketplace. The War on Poverty was developed with the aim of eradicating the root causes of poverty rather than just treating the symptoms. The Economic and Opportunity Act of 1964 was an integral part of the War on Poverty that spawned several new government programs such as VISTA, Job Corps, and Head Start by providing federal grants to states in an effort to increase employment. employability of young people. . The intentions and efforts of this law would represent the beginnings of the "war on poverty" as described in the bill: "It is the policy of the United States to eliminate the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty in this nation by opening to everyone the opportunity for education and training, the opportunity to work and the opportunity to live with decency and dignity” (Sreenivasan 1). The intentions put forward by President Johnson and the 88th Congress for the War on Poverty have failed over the course of half a century as economic dependence on government assistance continues to trend well upward. defined while the poverty rate has stagnated for decades. . Record reliance on government assistance from programs that support and encourage single parenting has contributed to the collapse of Aid to Needy Families (TANF). TANF has been considered a success in reducing dependency because it forces aid recipients to work, creating an incentive to escape poverty and welfare dependence. Since 1996, the growth of non-marital births has slowed and employment has increased. The food stamp program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), still operates under the same basic War on Poverty principles that demystified the AFDC program. It rewards idleness and creates generations of dependent Americans, leading to the same problems of out-of-wedlock births as AFDC. Without incentives to work, children will grow up with their parents dependent on the program. This dependency will likely be inherited by the child, creating long-term beneficiaries who will never gain the motivation to escape poverty..