Official percent poor in 1964: 19.0%

Official percent poor in 2013: 14.5%

Reduction to correct for:

Value of noncash benefits – 3.0%

Omission of refundable tax credits – 3.0%

Replacing CPI-U with PCE index – 3.7%

Adjusted percent poor in 2013: 4.8%

That is adapted from a Christopher Jencks review, “The War on Poverty: Was It Lost?”, in the 2 April 2015 New York Review of Books.

Do any of you know a good link-accessible version of comparable information? By the way, here is Ross Douthat on money and culture.