In his fabled State of the Union Address in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson set the wheels of government to war on poverty in America. In 1988, President Reagan famously responded that poverty had won that war, and hailed a free market strategy as the solution.

Many Americans simply looked away. Hurricane Katrina made looking away impossible. There was wrenching, shaming abject poverty, on display, for the country and the world. So what now? What is to be done?

Hear about American poverty, and what to do about it.

Guests:

Gwen Filosa, covers poverty for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans;
William Julius Wilson, Professor of sociology and social policy at Harvard University and Director of the Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University;
Thomas Shapiro, Professor of law and social policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University;
Lawrence Mead, Professor of politics at New York University and author of “The New Politics of Poverty: The Nonworking Poor in America.”