Military Spending and Poverty

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which military spending is associated with poverty in the United States for the period 1959-92. The relationship is complicated by macroeconomic factors such as economic growth and unemployment. Increased military spending is associated with increasing poverty; however, there is an inverse relationship between wartime military spending and poverty and a direct relationship between peacetime military spending and poverty. Also, military personnel spending is inversely correlated with poverty while Operations and Maintenance (O&M), procurement, and Research and Development (R&D) spending are directly correlated with poverty. These findings suggest the antipoverty policy alternatives of increased social welfare spending, defense conversion that is poverty sensitive, or increased spending on military personnel, which is usually only accompanied by war mobilization. The last option is untenable as social policy and the first option is unlikely in the present political climate; therefore, the poor must rely on more "efficiently targeted" conversion initiatives.