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The Key Features of the Great Society - continued

1 continued - Education
Solutions to the problems:
Elementary and Secondary Education Act - education to be put under federal responsibility, $1 billion was to be assigned to schools. Aid to church schools was to be given for the first time.
Higher Education Act - federal assistance to colleges and universities. Created undergraduate scholarships to ensure that more students could go to university.

2) Poverty
Economic Opportunity Act - called for the establishment of Job corps, work training and study programs
Set up office of economic opportunity to coordinate war on poverty. This was funded by $1 billion
Model Cities Act - funded clearing of slums, building of new housing projects and recreational facilities.
Minimum wage 1966 - rose from $1.25 to $1.40 per hour

3) Health
Medicare - growing number of pensioners
- funded health care for the elderly
- not as comprehensive as LBJ would have liked because of opposition from health insurance groups.
Medicaid - provide for poor.

4) The Civil Rights Act - 1964
Follow on from JFK and his failed bill
He gathered the leaders of the Civil Rights movement and ‘... Warned them to lace up their sneakers because he was going to move so fast on civil rights that they would have trouble keeping up with him’
- he banned discrimination in public accommodations and in employment. He gave federal government new power to enforce desegregation and prosecute voting rights violations

5) The Voting rights act
-ended literacy tests for voting
- allowed federal agents to monitor registration