‘Johnson’s Great Society dream failed.’ Assess the validity of this view.

In a May 1964 speech, president Johnson offered a new version of the American Dream, in which the federal government would engineer a ‘Great Society’. The dream addressed issues of poverty, racial inequality, education and housing. This was highly ambitious and had mixed successes. Johnson’s most important aim of the Great Society was to eradicate poverty, something he did not manage to achieve; however, he did significantly reduce it. In total, more welfare legislation was passed than in Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ and to say the ‘Great Society’ failed would be an unfair representation, however, it was in no way a total success either as its aims were not achieved.
Johnson’s most important element of his ‘Great Society’ was to eradicate poverty and in January 1964 he declared ‘unconditional war on poverty’, an ambition which he never fully achieved, but had made larger movements towards than previously. Johnson passed an Economic Opportunity Act (EOA) in 1964 and made significant achievements such anti-poverty programmes in 44 states in 1965 and 8000 Volunteers in Service to America who were assisting groups such as needy children, Native Americans and migratory workers. The minimum wage rose by 35 cents and loans were given to small businesses; $17 million was distributed in rural development loans in 1968. However, there were also many failures to his aim; in 1967, the unemployment rate was a 13-year low of 3.9% and poverty only fell from 17% in 1965 to 11% in the early 1970s. Therefore, Johnson’s aim of eradicating poverty was not achieved, and so this target of the ‘Great Society’ was not a success. However, significant steps were made in reducing poverty. Therefore, this was not a failed aimed, rather the initial aim was just unrealistic.  (continue with paragraphs on the others aims and a conclusion).