Government programs created during the great society contributed to which of these problems in the late-20th and early-21st centuries?
rising crime rates
the rising national debt
the widening of the wealth gap
declining educational achievement levels

Government programs created during the Great Society contributed to the rising national debt in the late-20th and early-21st centuries.

Explanation:

The Great Society was a program and set of domestic policy measures of the United States in the 1960s, proposed and put in place by President Lyndon B. Johnson as a continuation of the New Frontier of John F. Kennedy.

The main decisions taken were to provide social assistance for people over 65 (with the creation of Medicare), as well as for the poor (with the creation of Medicaid);  to promote education; and to fight against inequalities, especially against racism, and to promote a more just world; in particular, the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, giving black people rights they did not have before.

In spite of all these advances, the programs of the Great Society also implied certain inconveniences: they represented expenses that did not exist before, reason why they increased the public debt of the federal government to levels never seen before. Especially, Medicaid and Medicare represent large expenditures by the government, which considerably tilt the balance of public spending in the United States.