Reaganite budget cuts to benefit the wealthy contributed to economic decline for the majority, and especially for the poor and the working poor, and increased child poverty. Under Reagan the programs that got hit the hardest were those for the poor, and especially for the working poor.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported in 1984, "Low- income programs were reduced more than twice as deeply (in proportionate terms) as social programs not concentrated on the poor. Overall, the low-income programs bore nearly one-third of all cuts made anywhere in the federal government even though they constitute less than one-tenth of the budget. No other part of the federal budget was cut so deeply."

The Urban Institute also noted: "Because of the president's emphasis on self- sufficiency and productivity, the administration might have been expected to give some emphasis to human resource programs (education and training, public service employment, nutrition programs, Medicaid and social services) as a means of addressing poverty and welfare dependency. Instead, these were the very programs in which the administration generally proposed the deepest cuts."

Early in his first term, Reagan ordered some of his toughest budget cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, aid to families with dependent children, and other programs that were badly needed by large numbers of lower-income families, Black and White.

To make matters worse for workers and families, Reagan also put an end to the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, which threw 400,000 people into unemployment lines. He cut Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), putting another 500,000 people out looking for jobs. He reduced spending for Housing and Urban Development, which drastically reduced affordable housing and triggered the increases in poverty, hunger and homelessness that have continued to the present day.

(The above was quoted from the book, Reagan's Real Legacy.)