A decade's explosive growth in the scope, funding and complexity of national social policy has created serious problems in the United States. This first overview report notes that the Office of Economic Opportunity (now known as the Community Services Administration) has ceased to provide a focal point for national social policy. It was this state of affairs which prompted this report on present conditions and future possibilities for the poor in American society. Detailed discussions of specific problems, explanatory material about the historical background of these problems and implications for the future of the poor are delineated in nine sections. These include: Poverty Policy in Perspective, 1900-1980; Aspects of the "Low Income Problem" Problem; Nonaffluent Americans (A statistical profile of Americans who are neither so well off as the average nor in deep poverty); Attitudes of Americans, Poor and Nonpoor; Place and Policy (Area redevelopment and revenue sharing approaches); Anti-Poverty, Anti-Pauperism, and Economic Opportunity (Social programs are treated with reference to their intent to "improve" the poor); Income Maintenance Programs; Work: A Problem of Definition; Social Policy as Social Process (An attempt to develop priorities for national social policy in the near future). In addition to a discussion of all of these problem areas, a thesis is developed for their future solution. Each of these theses is derived from past and present day data and observations. One such theses, for example, is that the future will see more rather than fewer jobs for the less-skilled, and that social policy has been unduly influenced by contrary expectations. (Author/PR)