[U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Annual Report 1955]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

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HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE
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285161
U.S. DEPAR
HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington 25, D. O. - Price 65 cents
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U. S. DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE
As of June 30, 1955
Oveta Culp Hobby, Secretary
Vacancy, Under Secretary
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
Roswell B. Perkins...................
Bradshaw Mintener................
Chester S. Keefer......................
Donald M. Counihan.................
Terence P. Scantlebury...........
William C. McCamant..............
Parke M. Banta.........................
Rufus E. Miles, Jr......................
Fordyce Luikart.........................
Robert J. deCamp......................
J. Stewart Hunter...................
Frederick H. Schmidt..............
Assistant Secretary for Program Analysis.
Assistant Secretary for Federal-State Relations.
Special Assistant for Health and Medical
Affairs.
Legislative Liaison Officer.
Executive Secretary.
Assistant to the Secretary.
General Counsel.
Comptroller.
Director of Administration.
Director of Field Administration.
Acting Director of Publications and Reports.
Director of Security.
SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
Charles I. Schottland..............
William L. Mitchell.................
Victor Christgau...........
Jay L. Roney...................
J. Deane Gannon..............
Martha M. Eliot..............
Commissioner of Social Security.
Deputy Commissioner of Social Security.
Director, Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors
Insurance.
Director, Bureau of Public Assistance.
Director, Bureau of Federal Credit Unions.
Chief, Children’s Bureau.
PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
Leonard A. Scheele...................
W. Palmer Dearing...................
Jack Masur......................
Charles E. Burbridge . . .
Otis L. Anderson..............
William H. Sebrell, Jr. .
Surgeon General.
Deputy Surgeon General.
Chief, Bureau of Medical Services.
Superintendent, Freedmen’s Hospital.
Chief, Bureau of State Services.
Director, National Institutes of Health.
OFFICE OF EDUCATION
Samuel M. Brownell.................
J. Kenneth Little......................
Commissioner of Education.
Deputy Commissioner of Education.
FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION
George P. Larrick......................Commissioner of Food and Drugs.
John L. Harvey........................... Deputy Commissioner of Food and Drugs.
OFFICE OF VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION
Mary E. Switzer...........................Director of Vocational Rehabilitation.
Emory E. Ferebee........................ Deputy Director of Vocational Rehabilitation.
SAINT ELIZABETHS HOSPITAL
Winfred Overholser
Addison M. Duval . .
Superintendent.
Assistant Superintendent.
FEDERALLY AIDED CORPORATIONS
Finis Davis.................................
Leonard M. Elstad......................
Mordecai W. Johnson................
Superintendent, American Printing House for
the Blind.
President, Gallaudet College.
President, Howard University.
REGIONAL DIRECTORS
Lawrence J. Bresnahan...........
Joseph B. O’Connor...................
Michael J. Shortley................
Richard H. Lyle.........................
Melville H. Hosch...................
James W. Doarn.........................
James H. Bond...........................
Albert H. Rosenthal.................
Fay W. Hunter...........................
Region I, Boston, Mass.
Region II, New York, N. Y.
Region III, Washington, D. C.
Region IV, Atlanta, Ga.
Region V, Chicago, III.
Region VI, Kansas City, Mo.
Region VII, Dallas, Tex.
Region VIII, Denver, Colo.
Region IX, San Francisco, Calif.
285161

Letter of Transmittal
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
Washington, D. C., December 1,1955.
Dear Mr. President: I have the honor to submit herewith the
annual report of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
for the fiscal year ending June 30,1955.
Respectfully, lid Secretary.
The President,
The White House,
Washington, D. C.
ALASKA HAWAII
Contents
Page
The Secretary’s Report........................................ 1
Social Security Administration........................... 19
Public Health Service........................................... 83
Office of Education............................................... 143
Food and Drug Administration........................... 161
Office of Vocational Rehabilitation.................... 181
Saint Elizabeths Hospital..................................... 203
American Printing House for the Blind .... 215
Gallaudet College............. ... ................................. 217
Howard University............................................... 219
{A detailed listing of the contents of this report, by}
{topic headings, will be found on pages 223-230.}
vii

The Secretary’s
Report
“Government must work to stabilize the buying power of the
dollar, else the value of the pension, the insurance policy and the
savings bond is eroded away.
“Government, through social security and by fostering applicable
insurance plans, must help protect the individual against
hardship and help free his mind from anxiety.
“Government must use its full powers to protect its citizens
from depression, unemployment and economic distress.
“Government, my friends, must have a heart as well as a head.
It must encourage, guide, backstop and supplement—but never
dominate or attempt to regiment our people.”
This passage from an address by President Eisenhower admirably
sums up the general philosophy under which the Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare sought to carry out its responsibilities
during the fiscal year 1955—the second full year in the history of the
Department.
It is the concept, in fact, which led to the submittal to Congress
in April 1953 of the plan for the founding of the Department—the
first to be submitted by President Eisenhower for reorganization of
the executive branch of the Federal Government.
Establishment of the Department gave appropriate recognition to
the increasing importance which the American people place on better
health, improved education, and greater individual security—and to
the concern of this administration that these factors receive continuing
attention throughout the Nation.
Throughout the year, the Department has kept constantly in mind
the concept of encouragement, guidance, and supplementation which
1
2 Department of Health, Education, and W'elfare, 1955
the President describes as the proper role of the Federal Government
in these fields. The fact that the Department’s programs deal so intimately
with the close and varying personal concerns of the individual
and his family gives cardinal importance to the avoidance of any act
or attitude that might lead to the domination or regimentation of the
individual against which the President sounds a warning.
The opening pages of this annual report deal principally with those
events of the fiscal year 1955 which are departmentwide in scope or
are notably significant in the history of the Department. The reports
of the five major units which make up the Department—the Public
Health Service, the Social Security Administration, the Office of Education,
the Food and Drug Administration, and the Office of Vocational
Rehabilitation—as well as other related agencies and units will
be found in subsequent pages.
It is appropriate here, however, to describe the major developments
of the year which have special importance to the national welfare.
In certain instances, moreover, these illustrate the philosophy of the
President, set forth above. In essence, taken together, these represent
the highlights of a continuing record of achievement on behalf of the
health, education, and general welfare of the people of the United
States.
Progress in Health
The health of the American people continues to be good. Only a
few of the health statistics submitted by the States to the Public Health
Service of the Department and gathered by the Service itself need be
cited here.
The general death rate from all causes during 1954, the latest period
for which figures were available when this report was prepared, was
9.2 per 1,000 of population, representing a slight decline over the
previous year. Maternal deaths of only 5.3 per 10,000 live births and
infant mortality of 26.6 per 1,000 live births also showed a decrease
in 1954. This is the 18th successive year in which the infant death
rate continued to decline, one yardstick of the remarkable progress
in curative and preventive medicine.
The recent improvements in health are the work of many thousands
of individuals and many hundreds of institutions—practicing physicians;
scientists and their aides; the staff members of hospitals and
research institutions, including those of private industry; the great
voluntary health organizations which the American people generously
support; and public health agencies in the States and communities.
Illustrative of some of the challenges that lie ahead for American
medicine and science is the fact that cancer and diseases of the heart
The Secretary’s Report 3
and circulatory system were responsible for more than two-thirds of
all deaths in 1954.
The Federal Government plays an increasingly important role,
both in the extension, by the authority of the Congress, of its own
research and control activities and through its grants-in-aid to States,
private hospitals and laboratories, and individuals. There has been
some variation, over the years, in the degree and scope of the Federal
role, determined, in part, by the relative importance of various health
projects and the capacities of both Federal and non-Federal research
programs to move forward with maximum productivity. There has
been occasional and understandable difference of opinion on these
decisions. The total effect, however, of Federal participation in medical
research and in the control of illness has been very substantial
advancement of the frontiers of medical knowledge and improvement
of mankind’s armament for the ceaseless war against disease and
disability.
Public Health Service.—Among notable advances in research conducted
at the Public Health Service’s National Institutes of Health
during the fiscal year were extensive field trials which demonstrate
the effectiveness of a cytologic test to detect early cancer of the cervix
on a mass basis. New knowledge was obtained regarding the
cause and prevention of retrolental fibroplasia, a blinding eye disease
which has been affecting 50 percent of the smaller premature infants.
Studies of tissue culture which culminated during the year included
the discovery of a previously unknown group of viruses which affect
the respiratory system. This discovery has importance for future
research on infections of the upper respiratory tract, including the
common cold. Development of a multivirus vaccine for many of these
ailments by scientists of the National Institutes of Health made considerable
progress during the year.
Research activities in air pollution were expanded this year at the
Robert A. Taft Sanitary Engineering Center in Cincinnati, Ohio,
a focal point for research on the relationship of the environment to
human health. An Ad Hoc Interdepartmental Committee on Air
Pollution (representing the Departments of Agriculture; Defense;
Health, Education, and Welfare; and Interior; the Atomic Energy
Commission; and the National Science Foundation) was established
at the invitation of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.
It has recommended a Federal program of research and technical
services on air-pollution problems.
In 1954 Congress broadened the local-State-Federal hospital
survey and construction program to include diagnostic and treatment
centers, chronic-disease hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and nursing
homes. At the close of the 1955 fiscal year, 28 States had applied for
4 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
survey and planning funds under this program. Seven States had
completed revision of the statewide plans required under the law.
Construction project applications, which can be made only after surveys
have been completed, had been received from two States.1
In August 1954, President Eisenhower approved a bill authorizing
transfer of Indian health activities from the Department of the Interior
to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, effective
July 1,1955. During the fiscal year, the Public Health Service worked
closely with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in anticipation of the transfer
of this program, which involved some 3,400 employees and real
property valued at $40 million. A new Division of Indian Health was
established in the Public Health Service to administer this program.
The development by Dr. Jonas Salk of a vaccine effective against
paralytic poliomyelitis was among the most dramatic accomplishments
of American science during the year. This remarkable achievement
on behalf of the children of the Nation was signalized by the
Congress by a substantial monetary award to Dr. Salk and authorization
of a medal to memorialize his discovery. In April 1955, Dr. Salk
and Mr. Basil O’Connor, president of the National Foundation for
Infantile Paralysis, which had supported the work of Dr. Salk and
his associates, were awarded special citations by the President.
Licenses for the manufacture of the new vaccine were granted six
pharmaceutical concerns on April 12, 1955. It was apparent, however,
that the vaccine would remain in short supply throughout the
poliomyelitis season. Acting on the direction of the President, the
Secretary began to develop plans for assuring an equitable distribution
of the vaccine that was available. The plans were developed in
consultation with representatives of the governors of the States, the
medical and health professions, the pharmaceutical and drug industry,
public interest groups, and others concerned with the problem.
The Secretary recommended a system of voluntary allocation and
distribution of the vaccine while it remained in short supply. This
recommendation was based on the conviction that a voluntary plan
was the best way to assure an orderly and equitable sharing in the
benefits of this medical discovery for the entire Nation. The Secretary
also recommended the creation of a national advisory committee
to advise on matters associated with the distribution of the vaccine,
including the establishment of priority groups. These recommendations
were accepted by the President. A National Advisory Committee
on Poliomyelitis Vaccine was appointed by the Secretary, under
the chairmanship of Dr. Chester Scott Keefer, Special Assistant to
the Secretary for Health and Medical Affairs. Shortly after the close
1 On July 8, 1955, the first project was approved under the new program-—a nursing home
for Pinal County, Florence, Arizona.
The Secretary’s Report 5
of the fiscal year, at the request of the President, the Congress authorized
the expenditure of $30 million for grants to the States for
purchase of the vaccine.
Additional details on the distribution program, as well as the activities
of the Public Health Service with regard to safety and effectiveness
of the vaccine, are contained in the report of the Public Health
Service.
The Food and Drug Administration, whose duties are fundamentally
concerned with health, was subject to thorough study during the
latter part of the fiscal year by 14 distinguished members of a Citizens
Advisory Committee authorized by the 83d Congress. The two main
conclusions and recommendations of the Citizens Advisory Committee,
delivered to the Secretary on July 7, 1955, were that:
1. The Food and Drug Administration had insufficient funds, staff,
and facilities to carry out its statutory responsibilities to protect the
public health. A three to fourfold increase in personnel and facilities
should be achieved within 5 to 10 years.
2. A more effective job of law enforcement could—and should—be
accomplished. An expanded and improved informational and educational
program was urged.
Midway in the fiscal year, the Food and Drug Administration began
expanded research and educational efforts to improve the sanitary
handling of grain. The regulatory program with respect to rodentcontaminated
and insect-infested grain was resumed, with 12 carloads
totaling more than a million pounds being seized during the year.
Many times this amount was voluntarily diverted from human
consumption.
The intensified grain sanitation program was recommended by a
17-member technical committee appointed jointly by the Secretaries
of Agriculture and Health, Education, and Welfare. Both Departments,
as well as the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of
the Interior, are cooperating in this effort. Levels of contamination
on which seizure decisions are based will be changed progressively as
growers, shippers, and grain-elevator operators further improve their
handling of this vital raw food.
Two amendments to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
were put into effect by the Food and Drug Administration during the
year.
One amendment facilitates the establishment and amendment of
food standards by simplifying ponderous and time-consuming
procedures.
A second amendment enacted during the year provides a simplified
procedure for establishing safe tolerances for pesticide chemicals
which are necessary and useful in agriculture. Under the new pro6
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
cedure, 23 petitions for tolerances or exemptions therefrom were submitted
during the year. Final action was taken on 4.
Amended definitions and standards of identity were promulgated
for several cheeses, cheese foods, cheese spreads, enriched farina, catsup,
and certain canned vegetables.
The Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, a third unit of the Department
concerned with health, was engaged chiefly this year in expanding
its program under the Vocational Rehabilitation Amendments
recommended by the President and unanimously enacted by Congress
in 1954.
“This law is especially noteworthy in two respects,” President
Eisenhower said at the signing ceremony. “In the first place, it reemphasizes
to all the world the great value which we in America place
upon the dignity and worth of each individual human being. Second,
it is a humanitarian investment of great importance, yet it saves substantial
sums of money for both Federal and State Governments.”
Already, this legislative landmark is bringing to a greater number
of handicapped men and women the increased self-respect that comes
from earning a living instead of depending upon others. A downward
trend in the number of disabled workers restored to useful employment
was halted and turned upward by the close of the fiscal year.
To achieve a substantial expansion of the State-Federal vocational
rehabilitation system, Congress appropriated $4 million more for this
fiscal year than for the preceding year. Although State fiscal commitments
were determined prior to enactment of the new law, a number
of States moved to match the increased Federal funds with larger
State appropriations.
Money alone, however, will not rehabilitate handicapped workers.
More rehabilitation workers must be trained, more public and private
agencies must lend a hand, and rehabilitation techniques must be refined
and improved. All these are essential if vocational rehabilitation
is to achieve its goal—prompt and effective help to every disabled
person who needs it.
To increase the supply of trained rehabilitation workers, 80 teachinggrants
were made by the Department’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation,
37 short-term workshops or institutes were sponsored, and more
than a thousand traineeships were awarded. Physicians, nurses, physical
therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, social workers,
rehabilitation counselors, and speech therapists are among those being
prepared for the expanded rehabilitation program.
To expand further the Nation’s capacity to help disabled workers
return to useful work, as well as to improve existing rehabilitation
facilities, Federal grants were made to 130 public and private nonprofit
organizations. Many sheltered workshops or specialized reThe
Secretary’s Report 7
habilitation centers were thus enabled to provide services to more
handicapped people. To help improve rehabilitation methods, a National
Advisory Council on Vocational Rehabilitation, appointed this
year, approved 22 applications for support of promising research and
demonstration projects.
Taken together, these measures will make it possible to rehabilitate
more disabled workers. It is important also that each disabled person
begin his journey to personal and economic independence promptly—
as soon as possible after suffering his disabling illness or accident. In
this way, his skills do not lapse from disuse and his savings are not
swept away by lengthy unemployment.
The 1954 “disability freeze” amendment to the Social Security Act
protected the benefit rights of workers insured under old-age and
survivors insurance who become permanently and totally disabled.
During fiscal 1955, 46 States and Territories had designated their
vocational rehabilitation agencies to determine or share in the determination
of whether or not an applicant for “disability freeze” protection
qualified for such protection.
During fiscal year 1955, the first in which the “disability freeze” was
in effect, State vocational rehabilitation agencies were notified of
62,800 disabled men and women interested in securing rehabilitation.
Saint Elizabeths Hospital, the public mental hospital in the District
of Columbia, observed its centennial during 1955—marking a century
of progress in psychiatry and treatment of the mentally ill.
Major events included a conference of national and international
leaders in psychiatry; the completion of a new Intensive Treatment
Building at the hospital; and the production of a pageant, staged and
acted by patients, depicting the life of the hospital’s founder, Dorothea
Lynde Dix, and subsequent progress in the treatment of the mentally
ill. Scenes from the pageant were shown on a nationwide television
network as part of the Department’s continuing effort to bring about a
a better public understanding of mental illness and psychiatric
treatment.
Freedmen!s Hospital was also the subject of intensive study during
the year, in a long-delayed effort to chart a future course of services
to the District of Columbia area and the Nation.
Distinguished business and civic leaders and members of the medical
and nursing professions composed the Freedmen’s Hospital Study
Commission. For the consideration of the Secretary, the Study Commission
recommended that a new teaching hospital structure be built
and that Freedmen’s be affiliated with the Medical School of Howard
University.
On January 31, 1955, President Eisenhower, in a special message
to Congress, had outlined a number of measures for the general im8
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
provement of the health of the Nation. As has been indicated, a
number of these measures were, in one form or another, adopted by
Congress. Among the measures recommended in the health message
was a proposal for helping Americans meet the rising costs of medical
care through establishment of a Federal health reinsurance service to
encourage private health insurance organizations to offer broader
benefits to insured individuals and to extend coverage to more people.
Another proposal was that action be taken to authorize matching
grants to the States to help finance the costs of medical care for public
assistance recipients—the aged, the permanently and totally disabled,
the blind, and children deprived of parental care. No action
was taken by Congress on these proposals during the period covered
by the report.
Progress in Education
The serious problems confronting the Nation’s schools and colleges
in terms of shortages in teachers and buildings were of great concern
to the Department during the year. This concern was expressed in
legislation developed by the Department and submitted by President
Eisenhower to Congress to mount an attack on the grave classroom
shortage in the Nation’s public schools.
School enrollment, which has continued to increase, reached a total
of more than 38 million during the year. It is expected to climb to
more than 46 million by 1960. Factors contributing to the unprecedented
upsurge in school enrollment are an increased birthrate, an
increase in the proportion of school-age children attending school, and
an increase in the proportion of students finishing high school.
Although construction of schools reached a new high with the
building of 60,000 classrooms during the year, proper school housing
for the new students and to replace obsolescent buildings is not being
built fast enough. President Eisenhower’s special message to Congress
in January 1954 proposed local, State, and Federal action to
alleviate this grave—and growing—shortage of classrooms. The President’s
proposal was for a 3-year program of a fourfold nature:
1. That the Federal Government buy the bonds of school districts
which cannot market their bonds at reasonable rates of interest. The
President asked for an appropriation of $750 million for this program,
which had the advantage of being able to permit school districts
to move quickly in offering bonds for sale to the public.
2. That the States and the Federal Government, acting together,
encourage more general use of a plan already tested in some States.
In these States, school districts which are unable to finance new buildings
rent them from State agencies created to build schools. Under
the President’s plan, the Federal Government would have helped
The Secretary’s Report 9
facilitate the issuance of construction bonds by these agencies by advancing
one-half of an initial reserve fund and agreeing to replenish
this share as needed.
3. That a limited program of direct State and Federal grants be
authorized. These grants would have gone, on the basis of proved
need, to those school districts which cannot either repay borrowed
money or afford the cost of renting a new building and would have
been sufficient to permit them to qualify for assistance under one or
the other of the foregoing proposals. An appropriation of $200 million
was requested for this part of the program.
4. That programs of statewide action aimed at removing many of
the long-standing obstacles to local financing of school construction
be encouraged. The Federal Government under the program would
have paid one-half the administrative cost of programs of this kind.
The 83d Congress authorized 53 State and Territorial Conferences
on Education, to be followed by a White House Conference on Education.
The State and White House Conferences on Education were
designed to deal with all the major problems of American education
in a very fundamental way. The White House Conference was directed
to “consider and report to the President on significant and
pressing problems in the field of education.”
By the end of the fiscal year, all States and Territories had appointed
conference chairmen and conference planning committees. Seventeen
State Conferences on Education were held during the year, with 32
scheduled between July 1 and the fall months. In addition to the statewide
meetings about 3,800 community and county conferences and 200
regional conferences had been held or were scheduled in 27 States.
These conferences were designed to form an opportunity for the
people themselves to undertake an examination of their school needs
and to develop solutions for school problems or, when they are lacking,
to bring them to the attention of the States or the Federal
Government. They had already, at the close of the fiscal year, produced
a quickening of interest in the problems of public education on
the part of many millions of Americans. In the final analysis, these
citizens are the ones who must determine what their schools should
accomplish and provide the means by which this can be achieved.
Gallaudet College, the world’s only college for the deaf, is a wholly
independent educational institution in Washington, D. C. Through
the Department, it receives funds appropriated by the Congress in
support of its unique educational program. Significant steps were
taken during the year to enlarge the program, broaden the curriculum,
and generally improve the physical facilities of the college.
Plans and specifications were completed for a new library building,
funds for which were appropriated by the 83d Congress. Approval
was given by Congress to a proposal calling for the construction of a
368636—56----- 2
10 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
new physical activities building and a girls’ dormitory. Congress also
indicated approval of a departmental plan for the progressive rehabilitation
of the Gallaudet building and campus.
Howard University is another independent educational institution
in the District of Columbia which is supported, in part, by Congress,
acting through the Department. Work on five new buildings was
initiated on the Howard campus during the year, as part of a program
to provide larger and more modern quarters for the university. A
new dental school building with extensive clinical facilities was also
dedicated and placed in use during the year.
The American Printing House for the Blind is an independent institution
in Louisville, Kentucky, which manufactures Braille textbooks
and tangible teaching apparatus for use in schools for the blind.
Through the Department, the Printing House receives funds appropriated
by Congress to support its program, which benefits more
than 7,000 children enrolled in residential and public school classes
for the blind.
Progress in Social Security and Public Welfare
The growing significance of the social security system in our national
life is indicated by the fact that over half the persons who are 65 years
of age or older are eligible for old-age and survivors insurance benefits.
Nine out of 10 mothers and children in this country can count on
monthly benefits in case the family breadwinner dies.
Over 7% million Americans were beneficiaries of the old-age and
survivors insurance system in June 1955. Of this total, nearly 5.5
million were retired workers and their dependents and over 2 million
were surviving dependents of deceased workers. Benefit payments
in June 1955 totaled $428 million, an increase of 45 percent since the
close of the previous fiscal year.
The 1954 Amendments to the Social Security Act, adopted by Congress
upon President Eisenhower’s recommendation, materially
strengthened the old-age and survivors insurance protection which is
now available to 9 out of 10 American workers and their families.
In the 1955 fiscal year, a principal task of the Social Security Administration
was to make effective these improvements in the law.
The big job of changing the payment rates of some 6.6 million
beneficiaries was completed on schedule. As a result, the checks for
September 1954 were mailed on time at the new, higher rates. Over
6 million people receiving benefit payments from old-age and survivors
insurance were also advised of the new, liberalized “retirement test.”
This provision of the 1954 amendments affords greater opportunities
The Secretary’s Report 11
to retired individuals to supplement their benefits through earnings
from part-time or intermittent work.
Coverage by old-age and survivors insurance was extended rapidly
to the new groups made eligible by the 1954 amendments. Every rural
mail delivery box in the Nation received information about the eligibility
of farm operators and additional farm workers. Procedures
were worked out for the coverage of ministers on a voluntary basis.
By the end of the fiscal year, 44 States, 3 Territories, and 13 interstate
instrumentalities had arranged for certain of their employees to receive
the protection of old-age and survivors insurance.
Special efforts were made to put the “disability freeze” provisions
of the 1954 amendments into operation as soon as possible. The disability
freeze enables workers covered by old-age and survivors insurance
to preserve whatever eligibility for benefits they have earned up to
the time they were permanently and totally disabled. During the fiscal
year, about 400,000 potential applicants were identified, and 155,000
applied for the disability freeze of their social security benefit rights.
Procedures were also established to carry out provisions of the 1954
amendments calling for withholding of benefit payments from persons
living outside the United States and working 7 or more days per
month.
The State-Federal programs of public assistance reflected the
growth and improvement of the old-age and survivors insurance system
during the year, following enactment of these amendments.
Four groups among the needy are eligible for public assistance
payments—the aged, the blind, dependent children, and persons permanently
and totally disabled. Of the $2.6 billion spent for all types
of public assistance this year, 55.2 percent was from Federal funds,
36.1 percent from the States, and 8.7 percent from local sources.
For the most part, the 5.1 million persons receiving public assistance
in June 1955 are not eligible for benefits under old-age and survivors
insurance. Therefore, as more persons provide for their future security
through personal thrift and contributions to the Old-Age and Survivors
Insurance Trust Fund and other pension systems, there will be
fewer people needing public assistance.
In February 1951, the number of persons receiving old-age benefits
outstripped, for the first time, the number on the old-age assistance
rolls. Although the aged population has been increasing yearly by
350,000, the number of old-age assistance recipients has continued to
decline—by 34,000 in the past year—to a total of 2,549,000 at the end
of the fiscal year.
Old-age assistance—the public assistance program that serves almost
as many needy people and costs more to maintain than the three
12 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
other public assistance programs combined—should decline appreciably
in the years ahead. About 18 percent of all people over
65 years of age were receiving public assistance this year. Because of
recent improvements in the old-age and survivors insurance program,
fewer than 16 percent of the aged are expected to need this aid by
1960.
Extension of old-age and survivors insurance coverage to more farm
workers and farm operators will be chiefly responsible for this saving
to the Nation. A majority of those now receiving old-age assistance
live in rural areas or small towns, although a minority of all Americans
65 years of age or older live on farms or in villages. At present,
the proportion of aged persons receiving public assistance in rural
places and small towns is two-thirds higher than in metropolitan
areas.
The 1954 improvements in old-age and survivors insurance will also
help many widows and orphans who would otherwise have been dependent
upon public assistance. About 17 percent of the families who
now receive aid to dependent children funds are in need because of
the death of a wage earner. By 1960, this should be reduced to 10
percent.
The Children's Bureau of the Social Security Administration has
emphasized, in recent years, improving conditions of life for infants
and preschool children. Other groups requiring special attention are
adolescents in conflict with society, children of migratory workers,
mentally retarded children, and children in unprotected adoptions.
Help was given these groups of children and others this year through
research studies, publications for parents and professional workers,
and grants to the States to support programs for maternal and child
health, crippled children, and child welfare services. A new Division
of Juvenile Delinquency Services was established to aid States and
communities working to prevent and treat this serious social malady.
The Bureau of Federal Credit Unions of the Social Security Administration
was operated at no cost to the taxpayer this year. Fees collected
by the Bureau covered the direct costs of chartering, supervising,
and periodically examining federally chartered credit unions,
which are voluntary associations encouraging thrift and offering
credit “for provident and productive purposes.” The number and
assets of Federal credit unions continued to increase during the year.
For the first time, total assets exceed $1 billion.
Progress in Program Development
Civil defense responsibilities of considerable importance were delegated
to the Department at the beginning of the fiscal year by the
Federal Civil Defense Administration, with the approval of President
The Secretary's Report 13
Eisenhower. In general, the Department will be responsible, in the
event of attack, for control of hazards to health and the provision of
clothing and temporary financial assistance to civilians. Substantial
progress was made during the year in the assumption of these responsibilities.
Assistance was provided, through the States, to local communities
to help alleviate health hazards, suffering, and hardship caused by
hurricanes and other natural disasters during 1955. This tested working
relationships with Federal Civil Defense Administration regional
offices and with State agencies in the utilization of Federal resources
to cope with disaster.
Significant research progress was made by the Public Health Service
and the Food and Drug Administration in studying health and
sanitation problems related solely to civil defense. A sizable buildup
of the Public Health Service Reserve Corps was begun, and arrangements
were made for specialized civil defense training for its members.
For State and local food and drug officials, a civil defense training
course was developed which will ultimately reach 50 strategic areas
and an estimated 1,000 officials.
Stimulation of civil defense interest on the part of State health
departments and voluntary medical and health groups resulted from
a series of regional conferences and seminars, with all States represented.
Representatives of all State welfare departments met in a
series of regional conferences to develop plans for emergency financial
and clothing assistance to victims of an attack. “Pilot centers” were
organized in selected States to prepare civil defense teaching materials
for use in the schools.
The Department also participated in two governmentwide test
exercises involving relocation of staff and the continuity of essential
headquarters functions outside of Washington. The first of these, in
November 1954, involved only the headquarters relocation plan. The
June 1955 exercise, “Operation Alert,” required extensive activities
by both headquarters and regional office staff.
Surplus Federal property is donated, through the Department, for
public and private health and educational uses. During the 1955
fiscal year, surplus personal property with an original acquisition
value of $132.2 million was allocated to the States for distribution.
Transfer of real property was made to 225 institutions, which thereby
acquired 1,521 acres of land and 669 buildings, valued at $16.2 million.
Legislation enacted near the close of the fiscal year assures that
millions of dollars worth of useful Federal surplus property will
continue to benefit health and educational activities in the States. The
new statute also improves the operation of this program, especially
by enabling the States to assist in its administration.
14 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
The Committee on Aging of the Department coordinates activities
related to the great increase in the numbers and proportion of older
people that has characterized America in recent years.
Recognizing that the rapidly growing number of aged persons in
the population poses new challenges of great significance to the Nation
in social and family responsibility, in health, education, employment,
and income maintenance, the Secretary of Health, Education, and
Welfare initiated a study of the Department’s Committee on Aging
during the fiscal year. In June 1955, a departmental order designated
an Assistant Secretary to head a reorganized committee made up of
the heads of the Department’s constituent agencies to advise the Secretary,
develop programs of departmental action, and to serve as a
clearinghouse for information and aid the States, local communities,
and voluntary organizations in programs for the benefit of the Nation’s
senior citizens.
During the year, the Committee issued a pamphlet entitled “Aging
A Community Responsibility and Opportunity,” completed a revision
of its 500-item “Selected References on Aging,” and commenced a new
“Fact-Book on Aging,” an “Inventory of Official State Groups in
Aging,” and “An Inventory of Federal Programs and Activities in
Aging.”
The Committee also maintained its extensive program of public
information and consultation with foundations, organizations, and
State and local governments. The Department was a cosponsor of
the eighth annual Conference on Aging of the University of Michigan.
One of the most significant developments was the initiation by the
Department of an approach toward closer coordination of the activities
of all Federal departments in the field of aging. A plan was presented
to the sub-Cabinet by the Department for the organization of an Inter-
Departmental Working Group on Aging, and approval was obtained.
At the invitation of the Secretary, 10 departments and agencies designated
representatives to the Working Group. The first two meetings
were held at the Department, on June 10 and July 15. The initiation
of the Working Group quickly demonstrated the interrelationship of
Federal programs and the need for closer coordination. Plans were
commenced for placing the Working Group on a more formalized and
permanent basis.
International Activities.—“In the four quarters of the globe, who
reads an American book? Or goes to an American play? Or looks
at an American picture or statue ?” Such was, in 1820, Sydney Smith’s
now-famous criticism of the United States. He continued by inquiring
derisively, “What does the world yet owe to American physicians and
surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered?”
The Secretary’s Report 15
Since Smith asked his questions, the world has come to respect, not
only American writing and art but American education, science, and
medicine as well. Every year thousands of people from many lands,
experts and students alike, journey to the United States to study
developments in health, education, and social welfare. This Department
is proud to be one of their principal “ports of call.”
This year, for example, the Department supervised the programs
of study and training of 174 United Nations Fellows. In all, some
3,464 foreign visitors received training planned or supervised by the
Department. In addition, about 400 American technicians in health,
education, and social welfare were recruited for foreign assignments
with the International Cooperation Administration. Technical assistance
missions in 38 free nations were aided in this manner.
Interdepartmental Activities—Two matters of interdepartmental
concern that should be recorded occurred during the year. One was
the participation by the Department in a study made by the Department
of Agriculture and the Department of Commerce on the problems
of low-income farm families. The report of the Secretary of Agriculture,
which contained summaries of work of the committees of the
three participating departments, was published in early June 1955.
It pointed out that the joint study provides an excellent base for the
development of specific plans for definitive action to deal effectively
with the difficulties encountered by low-income farm families.
The other was the establishment of the President’s Committee on
Migratory Labor. The Committee included the Secretary of Labor,
as chairman; the Secretary of Agriculture; the Secretary of the
Interior; the Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance
Agency; and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.
The formation of this Committee constituted a first step toward
considering and dealing with the problem of migrant labor—a problem
that for 50 years had been under study and investigation but had
failed to command the continuing attention of the Federal Government.
During this year the Department also participated actively in the
work of the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations—the
Kestnbaum Commission. The Commission gave special attention to
the various grant-in-aid programs, and the Department prepared
extensive analyses of its activities for the use of the Commission and
reviewed and commented upon the Commission’s proposals and recommendations.
It is gratifying to note that after such thorough
study the Commission found relatively little wrong with the Department
s programs. Most of the Commission’s recommendations were
16 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
in accord with views of this Department. The report of the Commission
should go far toward promoting a better understanding of
the Department’s work and its relationship to the several States.
Progress in Management
Of the important and far-reaching proposals for government reorganization
proposed by the Hoover Commission, 13 were applicable
to the work of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
without any further action required by other agencies of government
or Congress. At the close of the fiscal year these proposals were under
careful study by the Department.
Congress appropriated $2.1 billion to the Department during this
fiscal year, for all purposes. In addition, receipts of the Old-Age and
Survivors Insurance Trust Fund totaled nearly $5.6 billion and disbursements
totaled nearly $4.5 billion. Of the funds appropriated
by Congress, 89 percent was distributed to States, communities, institutions,
and individuals, in the form of grants, scholarships, traineeships,
etc.
At the end of the fiscal year, the Department had 39,927 full-time
employees working in its offices, hospitals, and laboratories throughout
the Nation and overseas. Nine regional offices coordinated activities
throughout the Nation.
An organization of such size, dealing with complex matters vital
to the well-being of every citizen, requires the best possible structure
and management. More efficient, effective, and economical operations
were constant goals of the Department during the 1955 fiscal year.
The first comprehensive and long-range study of the Department’s
managerial responsibilities was made this year by the consulting firm
of Cresap, McCormick & Paget. The Office of the Comptroller was
established to give increased attention on behalf of the Secretary to
all budgetary and fiscal matters. The Office of Administration was
reorganized to provide more effective guidance to the units of the
Department with respect to such problems as organization, work
planning, and executive development.
In addition to the special surveys and reorganizations described
elsewhere in this report, inventories were made of real and personal
property for which the Department is responsible and a survey was
completed of the procedures for auditing the Department’s grants-inaid
to the States. A Departmental Staff Manual on Physical Security
was issued, containing detailed information concerning the Department’s
physical security program, policies, and procedures.
The Secretary’s Report 17
Net increases in staff were necessary only at the National Institutes
of Health and the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, in
both cases because of new legislation involving major expansions of
program.
During the year, cash awards totaling $14,250 were made to 350
employees who suggested better ways of doing the Department’s job.
Estimated savings as a result of employees’ suggestions amounted to
$119,998, and most of these savings will recur annually. There were
also many improvements not measurable in dollars that were rewarded
by cash awards.
Illustrative economies made in the course of the Department’s operations
this year include:
1. Installation of an electronic data processing system in the Bureau
of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance which will cut costs by more
than $1 million annually.
2. Freeing 9,775 pieces of office equipment, valued at $651,160, for
reuse elsewhere in the Government.
3. Turning in an estimated $41,855 to the Treasury from the sale of
useless records as waste paper.
4. A host of reductions in the volume of paperwork. For example,
the variety of postcards used by the States to report morbidity data
to the Public Health Service was cut from 82 to 5.
From the standpoint of the general management of the Department,
as distinguished from individual problems associated with specific
programs, perhaps the major concern is with the important and continuing
task of welding together the many programs of the new
Department into an operating whole. The job remained complicated
because of the width and the breadth of programs which fall within
the Department’s responsibilities. These programs cover a spectrum
as broad as the human needs—and, indeed, the human aspirations—of
the many millions of Americans who every day, in one way or another,
are touched by the work of the Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare. Although much, certainly, remained at the end of the year
to be accomplished—as will, indeed, always be true in a changing and
dynamic society—it can be recorded that substantial progress was
made in the endeavor to give coherence and unity to the management
of the Department and to enhance the effectiveness of its work on
behalf of the American people.
18 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
[On checks-issued basis]
Table 1.—Grants to States: Total grants under all Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare programs, fiscal year 1955
States, territories, and
possessions Total
Social
Security
Administration
Public
Health
Service
Office of
Education
Office of
Vocational
Rehabilitation
American
Printing
House
for the
Blind
Total______________ $1,815,694,000 $1,455,855,874 $95,048,735 $238,974,453 $25,599, 938 $215,000
Alabama_______________- 38, 356,842 30,321,541 2, 923,962 4,417,953 687,890 5,496
Arizona____ . _______ 13, 246, 513 9,572,158 374,108 3,148, 719 150,123 1,405
Arkansas. _ . ___________ 27,948,611 22, 598, 593 2, 399,141 2, 509,425 437,238 4, 214
California 210,869,101 162,032,415 4, 409, 545 42, 573, 053 1,840, 255 13,833
Colorado.. . 33i 010, 492 27, 242, 618 966,097 4, 600, 514 199,034 2, 229
Connecticut___ _ _ 16,149, 786 11, 747,820 514,193 3, 536,341 348, 501 2,931
Delaware.. __ _______ 2, 646', 810 1, 604, 620 504,421 369, 509 167, 924 336
District of Columbia____ 5,345,213 4, 521,103 320,225 110,139 392,616 1,130
Florida__________________ 43,826,138 35,430, 301 2,385, 047 5,186,416 819,244 5,130
Georgia ___________. 60,354, 768 46,625,370 4, 222,608 7,953, 966 1, 547,175 5, 649
Idaho_________________ _ 7,283,258 5,325, 806 426,172 1,455, 968 74, 213 1,099
Illinois____________ _______ 70,379, 066 61, 093, 586 2,950, 476 5,048, 707 1, 274, 632 11,665
Indiana_____________ ____ 25i 185, 941 20,147, 518 1, 644,409 2,998,101 392, 249 3, 664
Iowa______ _____________ 24, 765,357 21,756, 514 1,495,118 1,196, 551 313, 632 3, 542
Kansas__________ __ __ .. 27,003,359 19,141,309 1,294,301 6, 280, 570 284, 919 2,260
Kentucky________________ 35, 203,446 30, Oil, 463 2, 582, 215 2,404,880 201,376 3,512
Louisiana ______________ 70,374,839 65,212,221 2, 506,024 2,091, 656 560,724 4,214
Maine 10, 998, 702 8,307,190 794, 220 1,789, 914 107,378
Maryland. .. 22,127^ 419 Hi 309; 808 1,306, 211 9, 202, 216 305,001 4,183
Massachusetts________ 59; 835, 200 5< 860, 594 2,681, 601 1, 965,333 319, 947 7,725
Michigan________ ______ 56, 737, 364 45,701, 864 2, 663,826 7,277,073 1,084,372 10, 229
Minnesota - ____________ 29, 599; 000 26,185, 285 1, 270,068 1, 788, 762 350,030 4,855
Mississippi______ ______ 29,889,972 25,090,656 2, 598, 521 1, 778,164 418, 692 3,939
Missouri________________ 80, 435,684 73,911, 717 2,045, 651 3,865,391 608,345 4, 580
Montana______ 7, 967,021 6, 240,097 306,966 1, 272,253 147,033 672
Nebraska_____ ___________ 12,142,029 9,216, 839 912, 589 1,778,760 232, 528 1,313
Nevada 3, 486,068 1, 355,645 327,121 1,777,956 25,346
New Hampshire 4,983', 124 3', 605,768 623,840 ' 695', 289 58, 227
New Jersey______________ 20, 214, 949 14; 283', 426 1,918; 751 3, 508, 970 496; 840 6,962
New Mexico_________ .. 16; 326; 560 10, 277, 772 629,736 5, 287,021 129,802 2,229
New York _____________ 122,150, 966 108, 542,388 4, 018, 911 7,869,339 1,702,678 17, 650
North Carolina. ______ 38, 955,322 32, 539, 509 2,942, 336 2, 538,487 924,364 10, 626
North Dakota___________ Si 763; 692 L 888,609 200,825 564,726 108, 524 1,008
Ohio.. _ ___________ ... 69; 394, 706 54', 903,083 4, 691,042 9, 245,196 545,400 9,985
Oklahoma_____________ _ 60,819,349 50, 607,348 1,890,892 7, 789,277 529,175 2, 657
Oregon__________________ 15, 016, 891 12, 669,806 523, 747 1,470,870 349,934 2,534
Pennsylvania____ ____ 64; 408, 586 53; 078, 951 5, 565,047 3,859,025 1,891,364 14,199
Rhode Island 9; 146, 890 6, 912, 220 190,108 1, 923, 278 121, 284
South Carolina__ _______ 26,160,352 19; 968', 776 2,815; 726 2; 909; 521 463,367 2,962
South Dakota__________ 8,423, 508 6, 519,319 451,079 1,350,150 101,739 1,221
Tennessee____ _.__ 43, 036, 435 36, 234, 880 2, 904,300 3, 217, 645 674,999 4, 611
Texas________ _______ 112; 996; 222 90, 600, 452 6,036,172 15,179,437 1,171,733 8,428
Utah __ ______ 10; 750; 643 7; 135; 395 667, 885 2, 816,026 130,146 1,191
Vermont 4,184,213 3,654,470 91,376 336, 579 101,788
Virginia ________________ 33', 109; 068 12; 19L 817 2,305; 932 18, 027, 649 578,113 5, 557
Washington. .. 46,899, 718 32, 524,184 1,562,587 12,300, 913 509, 744 2, 290
West Virginia______ . 24,429, 637 2i; 724', 769 i; 472,487 652,907 576,451 3,023
Wisconsin____ __ __ 27,069, 713 22, 902,013 2,148, 715 1,445,491 568,028 5, 466
Wyoming 3', 42i; 551 2; 425,318 ' 304,852 675,054 86,327
Alaska 5, 407, 596 1,814, 678 221,195 3,326,368 45,355
Hawaii___ _____________ . 7; 553; 148 3,921,982 568,194 2,895,897 166,678 397
Puerto Rico__ __________ 9, 403, 904 5; 008, 581 3, 441,707 673,956 277,461 2,199
Virgin Islands ' 429, 258 ' 355,709 36,457 37,092
Social Security
Administration
Social Security in 1955
As the fiscal year ended, the twentieth anniversary of the Social
Security Act was drawing near. Appropriately, this year’s report
takes stock of the achievements of the past 12 months against a background
of two decades of progress.
The last year has been one of the most significant, in many respects,
in bringing the old-age and survivors insurance program within sight
of its goal. As a result of the 1954 amendments, signed by President
Eisenhower on September 1, about 9 out of 10 of the Nation’s jobs are
now within the coverage provisions of the contributory plan to maintain
income after retirement or death. Nine-tenths of the young mothers
and children in the country have survivorship protection that
would assure them of monthly benefits if the breadwinner were to die
today.
The basic social insurance program has made long strides since it
first provided old-age benefits for industrial and commercial workers.
The expanded program of broad coverage, protecting against the risk
of wage loss resulting from the death as well as from the old age
of the worker, is still far from mature. No one has yet been under
the program for a full working lifetime nor will the beneficiary rolls
reach their full growth until practically everyone who works for a living
has had an opportunity to gain protection. Significantly, however,
the 1954 amendments, by achieving almost universal coverage
and other desirable modifications of old-age and survivors insurance,
provide the assurance of future protection for all segments of the
economy.
When the Social Security Act was formulated 20 years ago, there
was clear recognition of the continuing need for public assistance as
well as social insurance. The Committee on Economic Security, in
19
20 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
suggesting a dual attack on the insecurity of old age, stated: “An oldage
insurance program could be expected in time to carry the major,
but never the entire, load. . . . Assistance programs have a definite
place, even in the long-time planning for old-age security.”
Since February 1951, the social insurance program can be said to
be carrying “the major load.” In that month, the number of aged
drawing old-age and survivors insurance benefits passed 2.8 million,
exceeding slightly for the first time the number on old-age assistance.
At the beginning of the 1955 fiscal year, the 5.1 million aged beneficiaries
receiving insurance benefits was almost double the assistance
load. At the close of the fiscal year, 6.1 million aged persons drew
insurance benefits and 2.5 million assistance payments, a ratio
approaching 2}/> to 1.
The number of recipients of old-age assistance has declined since
the autumn of 1950, ranging between 2.5 million and 2.6 million in the
past 2 years. In relation to our growing aged population, the decline
has been impressive. And increasingly as the old-age and survivors
insurance program has reached more of the aged group, the public
assistance program has served as a backstop for individuals whose
insurance benefits are inadequate for their needs, either because of low
benefits due to low or irregularly covered wages or because of special
needs such as medical care.
The growth of insurance protection for the aged over the past
20 years and the increasingly supplementary character of public
assistance is illustrated in chart 1. In December 1934, only about
5 percent of the aged received payments under the social insurance
and related programs then in existence—public employees’ retirement
systems and veterans’ pension and compensation programs. Another
5 percent received public assistance including work relief. Just over
one-fourth were earners or the wives of earners. Perhaps 1 out of
every 2 persons aged 65 and over was mainly or wholly dependent on
relatives and friends for support.
In contrast, at the end of 1954 all but 15 percent of the aged had
income from employment, social insurance and related programs,
and/or public assistance. Social insurance has made the major contribution
in improving the income situation of the aged. Almost half
the aged population in December 1954 was actually receiving payments
under social insurance and related programs. Old-age and
survivors insurance alone was then paying benefits to some 5.3 million
while an additional 1.4 million aged workers (of whom from 300,000
to 400,000 had aged wives) were insured and could have received
benefits if they had retired. Together these groups aggregated 7
million or one-half of all aged. Public assistance provided the principal
support for more than 2 million aged persons and supplemented
old-age and survivors insurance payments for another half million.
Social Security Administration 21
Chart 1.—ESTIMATED PERCENT OF AGED PERSONS WITH MONEY INCOME FROM EMPLOYMENT,
SOCIAL INSURANCE, AND PUBLIC ASSISTANCE, DECEMBER OF SELECTED YEARS,
1934-54
1 Includes persons with casual employment whose main support was from other sources.
3 Old-age and survivors insurance, railroad and public employees’ retirement, and veterans’ pension
and compensation programs.
3 Excludes persons supported by public institutions. Includes persons on work relief projects in
the 1930's.
In December 1954, the proportion of persons with some earnings from
employment was at about the same level as 20 years earlier, a decline
from the significantly higher levels of the war years.
The effect of the 1954 amendments in greatly strengthening the
gains of the last two decades will be evident even within the next
few years. By 1960, the proportion of the aged population who either
are receiving insurance benefits or could receive benefits on retirement
from gainful employment will have risen from one-half to
about two-thirds.
Provisions to improve the economic security of children have also
been greatly strengthened in the past 20 years. Because the original
Social Security Act did not include survivors insurance, the full bur22
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
den. of income support for childfen in need due to the death of the
father was placed on the program of aid to dependent children.
Assistance payments under the Federal-State program were first
made by the States in February 1936. By the end of that year, some
285,000 needy children deprived of support by reason of the parent’s
death, absence, or incapacity were receiving these payments and an
additional 119,000 were receiving payments under State and local
programs. Five years after the adoption of the Social Security
Act all but a few States were administering their aid to dependent
children programs with Federal financial participation. Of the case
load of 854,000 children in August 1940, fewer than 5 percent were
receiving payments financed exclusively by State and local funds.
Survivor benefits under the old-age and survivors insurance program
were first payable in 1940 and were awarded to some 50,000
child survivors during the first year. Insured status for survivor
benefits could be acquired after relatively short periods of covered
employment. Hence the insurance program quickly assumed the
major role in caring for the Nation’s fatherless children—a diminishing
group dropping from about 2.8 million at the end of 1934 to about
1.9 million 20 years later.
In December 1954, just over one million children were receiving
benefits under old-age and survivors insurance because of the death
of the father and another 40,000 because of the death of the mother.
Some 240,000 needy children received aid to dependent children because
of the father’s death. With the drop in the total number of
orphans and with social insurance payments reaching an increasing
proportion of them, fatherless children have made up a decreasing
part of the caseload of the aid to dependent children program. Of
the total caseload of 1.6 million children at the end of 1954, about
85 percent had been deprived of normal support, not by death of the
father but because of the continued absence from home or the incapacity
of either parent.
Altogether, about 3.3 million children received financial support in
December 1954 under a public income-maintenance program—including
programs of the Veterans Administration but not including children
in families receiving unemployment or disability insurance.
Many of the children receiving income support under public programs,
as well as hundreds of thousands of others, have benefited under
the Social Security Act provisions for services for maternal and child
health, child welfare, and crippled children. The contributions of
these programs over the last 20 years in improving the well-being of
children and in saving the lives of infants and their mothers have been
immeasurably great. Had the mortality rates of two decades ago not
been improved, 24,000 mothers would lose their lives in child birth
this year—twelve times as many lost lives as the 2,000 which are
expected under present-day rates.
Social Security Administration 23
In carrying forward the gains for the Nation’s younger generation,
the Children’s Bureau gave special attention in 1955 to the problems
of four particular groups of children. A coordinated approach to
problems of delinquent children was facilitated by the creation, early
in the fiscal year, of a Division of Juvenile Delinquency Service. The
other groups which received Bureau emphasis were children of migratory
workers, mentally retarded children, and children in unprotected
adoptions.
Other programs of the Social Security Administration—-not all of
which are 20 years old—made further contributions during the year
to family security. The Federal-State program of aid to the permanently
and totally disabled, established under the 1950 amendments,
was aiding 236,800 persons in 43 States at the end of the fiscal year.
The increase of more than 10 percent over the number of recipients in
June 1954 reflected the relatively recent introduction of the program
in some of these States. Aid to the blind, included in the original
Social Security Act, went to 104,000 persons in June 1955, about
3,000 more than a year earlier.
The program of Federal credit unions, too, has a role in increasing
family security. Credit unions promote systematic savings and use
the funds thus accumulated for consumer loans at reasonable rates of
interest. During the fiscal year 1955—marked by the twenty-first
birthday of the program of federally chartered credit unions—the continued
growth of these credit unions brought their aggregate assets
above $1 billion.
Program Administration in 1955
Implementation of the 1954 amendments was accomplished smoothly
and speedily. Over 6^ million old-age and survivors insurance benefit
checks were recomputed at new rates and released in October, the
month following the signing of the amendments. For the Bureau of
Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, the first half of the fiscal year saw
emphasis on public information activities and on preparation for the
new coverage and other provisions which became effective on January
1, 1955.
The 1954 amendments to preserve rights to old-age and survivors
insurance benefits in the event of disability resulted in a new and major
work load. A Medical Advisory Committee was established to advise
on the medical policies and standards needed in implementing the new
provisions. By the end of the fiscal year, agreements for the administration
of the disability freeze had been negotiated in almost all
States, and a total of 143,000 freeze applications had been taken. The
increase in benefit amounts resulting from the disability freeze provisions
was about to come into effect as the fiscal year closed, and much
work had been done toward completing determinations of disability
24 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
for individuals who were aged 65 or over and therefore potentially
eligible for immediate increases.
Early in the fiscal year, arrangements were completed to implement
1954 legislation transferring to the Bureau of Federal Credit Unions
the supervision and examination of credit unions chartered by the
District of Columbia. This was the second year in which this Bureau’s
operations were financed entirely by fees collected from the
credit unions.
A total of 18,514 employees, the vast majority of whom were in
district, area, and regional offices, were on the payroll of the Social
Security Administration at the end of June. The staff had been
increased by about 4,000 over the previous year’s total to meet the
demands of the expanded and growing program.
Through participation in international meetings and similar international
activities relating to social security, the Social Security
Administration added to its own knowledge and insight while contributing
its experience to other countries.
The high point of the year’s international social welfare activity was
the Tenth Session of the United Nations Social Commission, held in
New York in May, with the Commissioner of Social Security serving
as principal adviser to the United States member of the Commission.
The Interdepartmental Committee on International Social Welfare
Policy, chaired by the Director of the Bureau of Public Assistance,
had given major attention to preparation for the session of the Social
Commission. Through this Interdepartmental Committee and
through the Interdepartmental Labor Policy Committee, staff members
participated in the consideration of important social welfare items
coming before the United Nations, its various organs, the International
Labor Organization, and the Inter-American organizations, and developed
policy statements for the consideration of the Department of
State.
The Chief of the Children’s Bureau continued to serve as United
States Representative to the United Nations International Children’s
Fund and attended the World Health Assembly in Mexico City.
Other international meetings in which staff members participated
included the Tenth Pan American Child Congress in Panama City, the
Fifth Inter-American Conference on Social Security in Caracas, and
the Fifth International Congress on Mental Health in Toronto. Another
important phase of the Social Security Administration’s international
activities was its active cooperation with national agencies,
committees, and conferences.
There was a slight increase in technical missions for which the Social
Security Administration recruits and nominates qualified personnel
in social welfare, social insurance, child health, and credit cooperatives
under an agreement with the Foreign Operations Administration
Social Security Administration 25
(now International Cooperation Administration). During the year,
23 specialists were on duty in 12 countries.
Nearly twice as many persons from foreign countries as last year
requested training in the establishment of social security systems following
recent legislation, in management of credit unions, in management
of institutions and welfare agencies, and in staff and personnel
development to meet new agency requirements. There was a marked
increase in the numbers studying technical aspects of maternal and
child health. A total of 714 visitors from some 50 countries came
to the Social Security Administration for planning and training in
various fields. Of these, 127 were long-term trainees under the
auspices of the United Nations, the World Health Organization, or
FOA.
During the year there was major movement forward on the aspects
of civilian defense for which the Social Security Administration
would have planning or administrative responsibility. The program
administered by the Social Security Administration under normal
conditions was analyzed and those functions which would be essential
in time of major emergency were identified and reported through the
Department to the Office of Defense Mobilization. Participation in
the two “Exercises” under the direction of ODM and the Federal
Civilian Defense Administration afforded opportunity to evaluate the
program activities so identified and to make further progress in the
development of plans related to relocation, protection of essential records,
and other administrative aspects of defense planning.
During the year the Secretary assigned to the Social Security
Administration two of the programs delegated to the Department by
FCDA: emergency financial assistance and emergency clothing for
civilians. These were assigned by the Commissioner to the Bureau
of Public Assistance for administration.
Participation in Operations Alert by all Bureaus and the Commissioner’s
Office tested not only the continuity of essential functions
under emergency conditions but also the initial plans developed for
the administration of the delegations. The Social Security Administration
has participated in the analysis and planning preliminary to
the development of other defense plans of the Department related to
the fields of income maintenance and welfare services.
Old-Age and Survivors Insurance
The 1954 amendments in the old-age and survivors insurance program,
added to those made in 1950 and 1952, have equipped the
program to perform its functions well. It now provides protection
for almost all American families against the loss of the earnings they
368636—56----- 3
26 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
depend on for their support when that loss is caused by retirement
or death of the family earner. And, for several reasons, the protection
it provides will be more nearly adequate in the future than it
has been up to now.
First, the coverage of the program has been made very nearly universal
; this means not only that more people are protected under the
program but also that those who move from one kind of work to
another have all their earnings covered, rather than only a part.
Before 1951 major areas of work were outside of the coverage of the
program—work in agriculture and domestic service, farm and nonfarm
self-employment, and employment for Federal, State, and local
governments and for nonprofit organizations. The only major areas
that still remain excluded are Federal employment already under a
retirement system, members of the Armed Forces (whose present
temporary coverage expires March 31, 1956), and self-employment in
certain professions. Of particular importance is the extension of
coverage to both self-employment and wage employment in agriculture
that was accomplished by the 1950 and 1954 amendments.
Second, the “new start” adopted in 1950 will increase the benefit
amounts of those coming on the rolls in the future. Under this provision
most retired workers will have their benefits based only on
earnings after 1950; the relatively low wages of the late thirties and
forties therefore will not operate to depress their average monthly
wages and benefit amounts.
Third, the provision for the “drop-out” adopted in 1954, under
which as many as 5 years of low earnings may be disregarded in
determining the average monthly wage, will improve benefit amounts.
It will permit the exclusion of periods of temporary unemployment,
apprentice earnings, or “tapering off” toward retirement, so that an
individual who by and large has worked throughout his life may
receive benefits based on an average at or not far below that of his fulltime
earnings.
Fourth, the provision adopted in 1954 for “freezing” the benefit
rights of workers who become totally disabled will mean that such
workers, if they have been substantially attached to the work force
;before incurring their disabilities, will have their insured status
preserved and will be able to receive full-rate benefits when they reach
retirement age.
The effect of all these changes will be that the program will pay
higher benefits in the future to individuals who have worked throughout
their adult lives and supported themselves and their families but
who have had gaps in their earnings records because of noncovered
jobs, unemployment, or disability, or who under prior law would have
had periods of low earnings counted against them.
Social Security Administration
An additional reason why protection will be more adequate in the
future is that the benefit formula itself has been revised to pay a
benefit which is a higher proportion of previous earnings and the
amount of earnings that is creditable annually under the program has
been increased. Finally, the retirement test of the program has been
improved to apply more equitably to beneficiaries regardless of the
kind of work they do and to make it possible for beneficiaries to engage
in more part-time and seasonal work without forfeiting benefits.
The sections that follow describe the contribution that the revised
old-age and survivors insurance program is making to the security
of the Nation’s families and how that revised program has been put
into effect.
What the Program Is Doing
The following summary of significant statistical indices gives a
brief picture of the program in 1955. Neither the figures on beneficiaries
and benefit amounts nor those on the protection provided
by the program reflect the improvements brought about by the disability
freeze, since increased benefits resulting from the freeze were
not payable until the beginning of the 1956 fiscal year. Preliminary
figures on the substantive effect of the freeze are presented in the
section describing its administration.
BENEFICIARIES AND BENEFIT AMOUNTS
In June 1955 about 7.6 million people were receiving monthly benefits
under the program. Some 6.1 million of these beneficiaries were
aged 65 and over—4.2 million of them retired workers and 1.8 million
the wives and dependent husbands of retired workers and the widows,
dependent widowers, and dependent parents of workers who had died.
Of the remaining 1.5 million, some 300,000 were mothers and 1.2
million were children.
In June 1955, the average insurance benefit paid to a retired worker
who had no dependents also receiving benefits was $58.20 a month.
When the worker and his wife both received benefits, the average for
the family was $102.20. Families consisting of a widowed mother and
two children received, on the average, $132.30.
The benefit awards for persons now coming on the rolls for the first
time are considerably higher than those given above for all beneficiaries.
The higher amounts reflect the more liberal computation
provisions of the 1954 amendments, under which up to 5 years of low
earnings may be dropped from the computation of the average
monthly wage. Among beneficiaries who had come on the rolls by
28 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
June 1955 and whose benefits are based on earnings after 1950 with
eligibility to omit years of lowest earnings, the average for a retired
worker with no dependents receiving benefits was about $78, for an
aged couple about $130, and for a widowed mother and two children
approximately $182.
THE PROTECTION PROVIDED
Of the almost 14 million people aged 65 or over in the United States
in December 1954, 51 percent were eligible for benefits under old-age
and survivors insurance; 38 percent were actually receiving them.
The percentage of aged persons who are eligible is expected to rise to
65 percent by 1960.
Of the population under 65 years of age, 65 million were insured at
the beginning of the calendar year 1955. Some 24 million of these
people were permanently insured—that is, whether or not they continue
to work in covered jobs they will be eligible for benefits at age 65
and their families are assured of protection in the event of their death.
An additional 41 million were insured but would have to continue in
covered work for an additional period to make their insured status
permanent. Nine out of 10 of the mothers and young children in the
Nation were assured that they would receive monthly benefits in case
of the death of the family earner.
THE COVERAGE OF THE PROGRAM
About 67% million people will have contributed toward old-age and
survivors insurance during calendar year 1955. An estimated additional
1% million people will have been afforded insurance protection
jointly by the railroad retirement and old-age and survivors insurance
programs. In June 1955, about 91 percent of all jobs in paid civilian
employment were covered by the program or were eligible for coverage.
An additional 3 percent of the Nation’s paid civilian jobs, not
covered by old-age and survivors insurance, were covered by Federal,
State, or local government retirement systems. The residual group,
comprising about 6 percent of the Nation’s paid civilian employment,
was not covered under any public retirement program. This group
consisted mostly of self-employed persons whose annual net earnings
were less than $400, certain self-employed professional people, and
domestic and farm workers who did not earn sufficient wages from any
one employer to meet the minimum coverage requirements of the law.
Members of the Armed Forces, while not covered by old-age and
survivors insurance on a contributory basis, are granted wage credits
of $160 for each month of active service after September 15, 1940,
and before April 1,1956.
Social Security Administration 29
INCOME AND DISBURSEMENTS
Program expenditures during the fiscal year totaled $4,436 million,
of which $4,333 million was for benefit payments and $103 million
for administrative expenses. Total receipts were $5,534 million, including
$5,087 million in net contributions, $438 million in interest on
investments, and $10 million in transfers from the railroad retirement
account. Receipts exceeded disbursements by $1,098 million, the
amount of the increase in the trust fund during the year. At the end
of June 1955, the fund totaled $21.1 billion.
On June 30, all assets of the fund, except $560 million held in cash,
were invested in United States Government securities as required by
law; $2.3 billion were invested in public issues (identical with similar
bonds owned by private investors), and $18.2 billion were invested in
special certificates of indebtedness bearing interest at the average rate
paid on the total interest-bearing Federal debt at the time they were
issued. The average interest rate on all investments of the trust fund
at the end of the fiscal year was about 2.3 percent.
Administering the Program
EFFECTUATING THE 1954 AMENDMENTS
Immediately after enactment of the amendments, recruitment objectives
were established for each part of the Bureau; these objectives
were related to anticipated loads, the ability to recruit qualified personnel,
and the rate at which new staff could be successfully trained
and absorbed. The net personnel increase required by the 1954 amendments
was approximately 3,400. This brought Bureau staff at the
end of the fiscal year to just over 17,600 employees—the staff needed
for operations at the new and continuing workload level at which the
Bureau will operate.
Training on the amendment provisions and on new policies and
procedures was essential for both experienced and new personnel. One
device followed was to train groups of key supervisory and technical
people, who then carried the new knowledge back through the supervisory
line and to all parts of the country to people already on the
Bureau’s staff. Central office training classes were established in
Baltimore for new employees. More than 1,200 new field employees
received intensive instruction in these courses during the fiscal year.
One of the first tasks required by the amendments was the conversion
of the monthly benefit checks of over 6.5 million beneficiaries to
the new higher amounts. This operation was completed in time to
permit release of the September checks when they were due. This
was accomplished through timely procedural planning and testing,
30 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
the maximum use of mechanical methods for the actual conversion,
and close synchronization of operations with those in the Treasury
Department’s disbursing offices.
The burden of administration stemming from the amendments was
greatest during the period from January 1, 1955, to the end of the
fiscal year. In the first 3 months of 1955, over 100,000 more claims
applications were received than in the first 3 months of 1954. Because
this influx of claims was concentrated in such a short period of time,
pending loads in the district offices rose to unprecedented levels. By
June 30, 1955, substantial inroads had been made in this backlog, but
the district office pending load was still high.
ADMINISTERING THE DISABILITY “FREEZE”
Under the new disability “freeze” provision, persons having both
substantial and recent covered work prior to disablement are eligible
to have their insurance rights frozen during the period in which longcontinuing
total disability prevents them from performing any substantial
gainful work. Adoption of the disability freeze provision
not only created an entirely new area of program administration for
the Bureau, but also, for the first time, provided for Federal-State
administration of a phase of the old-age and survivors insurance program.
The law directs the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare
to enter into agreements with vocational rehabilitation agencies
or other appropriate State agencies to make determinations of disability
for freeze purposes.
A new division in the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance—
the Division of Disability Operations—was assigned primary responsibility
for making determinations in cases not covered by State agreements
and for reviewing certain disability determinations made by
State agencies. The Division received substantial help in the development
of policies and procedures from a committee appointed by the
State Vocational Rehabilitation Council, from constituents in the Department—
particularly from the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation—
and from other departments and agencies. To assist in the development
of medical standards and policies, a Medical Advisory Committee
to the Social Security Administration was appointed. This Committee,
composed of members of the medical and related professions
having a common interest in the problems of the disabled, provided
consultation on medical policies involved in making disability determinations
and technical advice on the formulation of medical guides
and standards. The Medical Advisory Committee is expected to continue
beyond this initial year of operations to evaluate the medical
aspects of the administration of the freeze and will assist the Bureau
in preparing medical policies and procedures and in solving problems
that have medical content.
Social Security Administration 31
A major phase in preparing to administer the freeze was the negotiation
of agreements with individual States to make determinations
of disability. The Governors of all States were asked to designate
an appropriate agency or agencies for this purpose. At the end of
the fiscal year, designations had been received from all but two jurisdictions.
In 42 States the vocational rehabilitation agency was designated;
in four the vocational rehabilitation agency and either the
public welfare agency or a special agency for the rehabilitation of
the blind; and in five the public welfare agency. Agreements with
38 States and advances of funds were approved by the Commissioner
by the end of the year. Under the law, the State agencies may elect to
exclude certain cases from the agreement. In general, cases where
disability began many years in the past and cases where the disabled
individual is an old-age insurance beneficiary and therefore may be
eligible for an immediate increase in benefits were currently excluded
from the agreements.
In addition to speeding work on negotiations of agreements and
providing State agencies with funds with which to start operations,
the Bureau made intensive efforts during the second half of the fiscal
year to identify potential applicants and to process freeze applications.
District offices identified several hundred thousand potential
applicants and accepted 143,000 freeze applications before the end of
the fiscal year. Because an old-age insurance beneficiary who had
been disabled before he attained age 65 could, through the freeze, receive
an increase in his benefit amount beginning with the month of
July, priority was given to the securing and processing of applications
from these older people.
The 1954 amendments included a statement of policy to the effect
that disabled individuals applying for a determination of disability
under the freeze should be promptly referred to State vocational rehabilitation
agencies for rehabilitation services, to the end that the
maximum number of disabled individuals may be restored to productive
activity. To carry out this policy, the Bureau, early in the fiscal
year, began describing the services available under State vocational
rehabilitation programs to each disabled person inquiring about the
freeze. Concurrently, contacts were made with State rehabilitation
agencies to work out arrangements for making prompt and effective
referrals. As these arrangements were completed State agencies began
receiving information on many thousands of disabled individuals,
including many who were not freeze applicants. Although it is too
early to assess accurately the substantial values that will result from
this process, experience thus far has shown that a large proportion
of the disabled persons referred were not previously known to vocational
rehabilitation agencies.
32 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
The Division of Disability Operations began making tentative determinations
on cases in March. About 62,000 applications were received
in the Division before the close of the fiscal year. Although
only a scattering of determinations had been completed by State
agencies, the volume will grow rapidly as the agencies become staffed
and trained.
In July 1955 the benefit checks of more than 13,000 old-age insurance
beneficiaries were raised as the result of the freeze; additional
cases were in process. The average July rise was $10.43 (in some
cases a portion of the increase was attributable to the drop-out provision
in the 1954 amendments). Dependents of old-age insurance
beneficiaries entitled to the freeze received proportionate increases in
their benefits.
OTHER ADMINISTRATIVE DEVELOPMENTS
Several years of detailed research have gone into the study of the
possible application of large-scale electronic data-processing equipment
to the Bureau’s earnings record operation. Studies culminated
this year in the selection of data-processing equipment which will be
installed in the latter part of fiscal year 1956 for maintaining earnings
records and for properly crediting earnings items reported incorrectly
by employers. This equipment, using magnetic tape to record
earnings information, will eliminate the setting up of a second summary
punchcard file for approximately 80 million accounts on July 1,
1956, which would otherwise have been necessary in order to include
the additional data required by the 1954 amendments in making benefit
computations. In addition, its use in the operation to properly credit
incorrectly reported earnings items will reduce the number of items
that cannot be credited and will cut the cost of the operation substantially.
Within a year after initial installation, the use of the
equipment will be extended to the Bureau’s statistical operations,
where increased efficiency will result.
Another major subject of study over the past several years has been
the plan to combine social security reporting with reporting for
income-tax withholding purposes. Under that plan the quarterly
wage reports now filed for social security purposes would be eliminated
for those employers whose employees were also subject to income-
tax withholding. The withholding-tax statements (Forms W-
2) filed by the employer once a year for each employee would be used
to maintain the wage records necessary in the old-age and survivors
insurance program. Under agreement with the Treasury Department,
the copies of the Forms W-2 filed by employees with their
income-tax returns would also be sent to the Bureau of Old-Age and
Survivors Insurance for withholding-tax verification purposes.
Social Security Administration 33
The plan is expected to reduce the reporting burden of employers
(about 200 million wage items would be eliminated), to provide an
automatic method whereby employees may verify annually the accuracy
of reports of their earnings under old-age and survivors insurance,
to effect improvements in efficiency in the Government’s processing
operations, and to strengthen social security tax and withholding
tax administration.
Adoption of legislation to carry out the proposal has been recommended
by the President and a bill (H. R. 7770) embodying the plan
has been introduced in the House of Representatives.
In September 1952, the House Appropriations Committee initiated
studies of the possibility of check writing by benefit payment agencies
to replace the current practice of certification by agencies and disbursement
by the Treasury Department. Subsequent to experiments
by the Railroad Retirement Board, the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors
Insurance with the Treasury Department and the General
Accounting Office studied possible applications of this procedure to
the old-age and survivors insurance area offices. As a result of these
studies the Bureau’s Birmingham Area Office in July 1955 assumed
the responsibility, on an experimental basis, for writing benefit checks.
In the 1956 appropriations bill the Congress authorized expenditure
of $3,870,000, in addition to amounts previously authorized, for a
building to house all of the Baltimore operations of the Bureau, and
also authorized the use for construction of funds previously authorized
to be used in preparing for construction and not required for
that purpose. The limit of cost as established by this congressional
action is $25,370,000. During the year the Government acquired title
to the site for the building, on the outskirts of Baltimore.
Financing the Program
In setting the schedule of contribution rates in the 1954 amendments
Congress again made clear its intent that the old-age and survivors
insurance program is to be self-supporting from contributions
of covered workers and employers. The rates in the schedule were
arrived at after careful review of long-range actuarial cost estimates.
According to these estimates, the level-premium cost of the program
after 1952 on an intermediate basis, assuming interest at 2.4 percent
and earnings at the levels that prevailed during 1951 and 1952 (the
latest then available), was 7.50 percent of payroll. The level contribution
rate equivalent to the graduated rates in the law was estimated
at 7.12 percent of payroll, so that there was an estimated deficit of
0.38 percent.
34 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
Revisions in these estimates have recently been prepared that take
into account the rise in earnings levels since 1951 -1952 and the
most recent coverage and benefit experience. According to these new
estimates the level premium cost of the program after 1955, on an
intermediate basis and assuming 2.4 percent interest, is 7.51 percent.
The level contribution rate equivalent to the graduated contribution
rates in the law is estimated at 7.29 percent, with a resulting deficit
of 0.22 percent. Thus the new estimates show that the deficit has
been significantly reduced. Taking into account the practice of using
contribution rates rounded to convenient fractions, the system is as
nearly in balance as is practical.
The difficulties involved in making exact predictions of the actuarial
status of a program that reaches into the distant future are widely
recognized. If different assumptions as to, say, interest, mortality, or
earnings had been used, different results would have been obtained.
Accordingly, no one set of estimates should be looked upon as final.
As economic and other conditions change, the Department will continue
to prepare new cost estimates reflecting the latest information
available.
A Study of the Minimum Benefit
Public Law 761, the Social Security Act Amendments of 1954,
contained the following section calling for a study of the minimum
benefit under the old-age and survivors insurance program:
Sec. 404. (a) The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare shall conduct
a full and complete study with a view to determining the feasibility of increasing
the minimum old-age insurance benefit under title II of the Social Security Act
to (1) $55 per month, (2) $60 per month, and (3) $75 per month.
(b) Such study shall include (1) a detailed analysis of the estimated increase
in cost, if any, involved in increasing such minimum benefit to each of the above
referred to amounts, (2) estimates of the financial impact such increase would
have upon the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, and (3) an estimate
of the amount, if any, by which Federal grants to the States for public assistance
would be reduced by reason of such increase in minimum old-age insurance
benefits.
(c) The Secretary shall report to the Congress at the earliest practicable date
the results of the study provided for by this section.
Tn accordance with this directive a study of the feasibility of increasing
the minimum benefit to the specified amounts was conducted
during the fiscal year 1955. The study included, in addition to the
required analysis of costs and of the impact on Federal grants for
public assistance, an analysis of the relationship of the proposed increases
to employment patterns, earnings, and benefit levels of workers
and of beneficiaries with a view to determining who would benefit
Social Security Administration 35
from, and who would be disadvantaged by the proposed increases in
benefits and cost.
In connection with the study, estimates were prepared of the benefits
that are expected to be awarded under the program in the next
5 years. It is anticipated that about 80 percent of the benefits awarded
to retired men workers during that period will be based on earnings
after 1950 and will reflect the changes in the program, described earlier,
that are expected to improve benefit adequacy. Among these retired
male beneficiaries whose benefits are based on earnings after 1950
only 6 percent are expected to qualify for less than $60 a month; over
80 percent are expected to receive benefits between $75 and $108.50.
The study was completed and a report on the study was submitted
to the Congress shortly after the end of the fiscal year. The conclusions
reached in the study, as summarized in the report, are as follows:
. . . the proposed increases in the minimum would result in appreciable increases
in the cost of the old-age and survivors insurance program. The increase
in cost on a level-premium basis for the $55 minimum would be 0.6 percent of
payroll; for the $60 minimum, 0.9 percent; for the $75 minimum, 1.8 percent.
With a $55 minimum the savings in Federal grants to States for old-age assistance
would amount to about 4 percent at present and about 8 percent in 1960.
The comparable figures for a $75 minimum would be 10 percent now and somewhat
under 19 percent in 1960. The additional expenditures for old-age and
survivors insurance in 1955 would amount to from 5 to 7 times the reduction in
the Federal share of assistance costs ; for 1960 from 8 to 11 times.
Those who would benefit from the proposed increases in the minimum, aside
from those people now on the rolls, would be widows whose husbands died before
the recent improvements in old-age and survivors insurance, families where
the wife had barely enough covered work to be insured, and people who had spent
most of their lives outside of covered work such as doctors, lawyers, Federal employees,
and investors. In addition there would be some regular lifetime workers
in low-wage areas, such as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, or in farming,
with its low cash wage and considerable remuneration in kind. The chief group
that would be hurt by reason of paying additional contributions without any
benefit increases would be the regular, full-time, lifetime workers who supported
themselves and their families throughout their lives by work in covered jobs.
It would seem very difficult to justify to the long-term contributors to the system,
who even under present law receive less in proportion to their contributions
than do the short-term contributors that they must pay still higher contributions
to help finance benefit increases for others while not getting additional benefits
themselves. Especially would this be true when it is considei'ed that among
those who would receive the increased amounts would be self-employed doctors
and lawyers, Federal workers, investors and others whose major source of sup-
P°rt—income from noncovered work or investments—is not subject to the taxes
that support the program.
Thus the provision of high minimum benefits not only would increase the cost
of the program but it might also jeopardize the financing of the program by decreasing
the willingness of the long-term regular worker to support the system.
In the opinion of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare there are
values inherent in the contributory, variable-benefit system that make it most
important that no step be taken, however expedient it may seem in the short
run, that would weaken the financial basis of the system.
36 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
Legislative Developments in 1955
A bill (H. R. 7770) to consolidate reporting of wages for incometax
withholding and social security purposes was introduced in the
House of Representatives shortly before the first session of the Eightyfourth
Congress adj ourned. Since quarterly reports of earnings would
not be made under the plan for workers covered by the income-tax
withholding procedures, the bill provides for changing the insured
status requirements under the program from the present quarterly
basis to an annual basis.
H. R. 7770 also includes a provision under which the Federal
old-age and survivors insurance trust fund would earn a higher rate
of interest on its investments. The law now requires that special
obligations issued to the trust fund bear interest at a rate equal to
the average rate of interest borne by all interest-bearing obligations
of the United States forming a part of the public debt. (When the
average rate is not a multiple of % of 1 percent, the rate of interest
is the multiple of % of 1 percent next lower than the average rate.)
In determining the interest rate under this rule all obligations, including
very short-terms ones, are included. Yet the financial commitments
of the system are basically of a long-term nature and it is
appropriate to take that fact into account in arriving at a rate of
interest that is equitable. Under H. R. 7770 the interest rate on
special obligations issued to the fund would be the average rate of
all marketable United States Government obligations having maturity
dates more than 5 years after issuance; thus short-term obligations
would not be considered. The bill also provides that the average
rate would be rounded to the nearest (rather than the next lower)
multiple of % of 1 percent.
Late in the first session, the House of Representatives passed H.
R. 7225, a bill that would lower the retirement age to 50 for insured
individuals who are permanently and totally disabled, reduce the
benefit eligibility age for wives, widows, female parents, and women
workers to 62, continue monthly benefits for disabled children after
age 18, extend old-age and survivors insurance coverage to self-employed
professional people not yet covered (except doctors) and a few
smaller groups, increase the contribution rates, and establish an Advisory
Council on Social Security Financing. Time did not permit full
consideration of the measure by the Senate. The Department endorsed
the extension of coverage provided by the bill but stated that
the other provisions required study and evaluation more extensive
than could be provided during the closing days of the 1955 session
of Congress.
Social Security Administration 37
After a number of months of intensive study and public hearings,
the Select Committee on Survivor Benefits of the House of Representatives
(the Hardy Committee) reported out a bill, H. R. 7089, that
was passed by the House on July 13,1955. The Senate Committee on
Finance is expected to consider the bill at the next session of the
Congress. This bill would make major improvements in the survivor
benefit programs for servicemen, including extension of contributory
old-age and survivors insurance coverage to members of the
Armed Forces and coordination of the survivor benefits payable by
the Veterans Administration with those that would be provided by
old-age and survivors insurance. The bill would substantially carry
out the recommendations of the President and of this Department
that coverage be extended to members of the uniformed services on
a contributory, wage-related basis.
H. R. 7089 includes provision for reimbursement of the Federal
old-age and survivors insurance trust fund for past and future expenditures
resulting from the gratuitous $160 monthly wage credits
which are provided under existing law for military service performed
since September 15, 1940.
When it became evident that Senate consideration of H. R. 7089
could not be completed in 1955, the Eighty-fourth Congress enacted
Public Law 325 as a stop-gap measure. This law extended the expiration
date of the gratuitous $160 monthly wage-credit provision from
July 1, 1955, to April 1, 1956. If H. R. 7089 is enacted to provide
contributory coverage of the Armed Forces effective January 1, 1956,
the social security law will need to be amended so that the $160 gratuitous
credits will not be granted for military service after 1955.
In addition to the significant developments that occurred during
the year in respect to improved retirement and survivors protection
for members of the Armed Forces, the President took steps to improve
veterans’ legislation by establishing the President’s Commission
on Veterans’ Pensions, with General Omar N. Bradley as Chairman.
At the President’s direction, this Commission began a
comprehensive study of the Federal laws providing nonmedical
benefits to veterans and their dependents, including the relationship
of these benefits to benefits provided under the social security and
other general programs, as a basis for recommendations to be submitted
to the Congress. The Department was asked to furnish
information about the present and potential effects of the old-age
and survivors insurance program and others administered by the
Department on veterans.
Amendments to the Railroad Retirement Act were approved August
12, 1955. These amendments made no basic changes in the coordination
of the railroad retirement and old-age and survivors
38 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
insurance programs; however, they did remove the former requirement
in the railroad law that survivor annuities be reduced by the
amount of any old-age and survivors insurance benefit (based on a
different wage record) payable to the annuitant.
Some progress was made during the year toward carrying out the
recommendation of the Committee on Retirement Policy for Federal
Personnel that old-age and survivors insurance coverage be extended
to employees covered by the Federal civil service retirement system
and that the latter system be revised to be supplementary to old-age
and survivors insurance. The Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare believes that the recommendation, if carried out, would
substantially improve the protection afforded to Federal employees.
Public Assistance
The twentieth year of administering public assistance under the
Social Security Act was an occasion for taking stock—appraising
gains and evaluating needs in planning the future direction of the
program.
Gains in Public Assistance
Benefits of the public assistance titles of the act are now extended
to the needy aged and blind and to dependent children in all the approximately
3,100 counties in the United States, and in Alaska, Hawaii,
the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
Nevada, since 1945 the only jurisdiction without a federally aided
program of aid to dependent children, passed legislation authorizing
the initiation of its program in July 1955. The federally aided program
initiated in Maine during the year brought to 43 the States
administering aid to the permanently and totally disabled for which
Federal grants were provided under a 1950 amendment to the act.
In addition, States provide general assistance, using only State and/or
local funds.
During the past 20 years the State public assistance programs have
undergone great development in their ability to help people meet their
needs in ways that are consistent with the dignity of the individual
and with respect for his rights and responsibilities. Much of the gain
is attributable to implementation of concepts embodied in the public
assistance titles of the act reenforced by the knowledge and experience
of related fields of economics, law, social work, medicine, and public
administration.
For example, placement of responsibility with a single State agency
for statewide operation of the program has contributed to the developSocial
Security Administration 39
ment or strengthening of State departments of public welfare throughout
the country and provided for equitable administration of assistance
to needy people within a State. Although traditional responsibility
of the States and localities for administering public assistance
was retained, certain provisions in the Social Security Act reflect the
national interest, such as those relating to proper and efficient administration
and consideration of income and resources in determining
need for assistance.
The act also provides for a fair hearing when a needy person has
been denied aid or is dissatisfied with the amount of his assistance
payment, or when his application has not been acted upon with reasonable
promptness. This has protected needy persons against arbitrary
or erroneous decisions of an individual staff member and strengthened
State responsibility by providing for State review of a local decision.
Most States define a needy person as one whose income and resources
are too small to provide what the State has set as the minimum required
for basic maintenance needs, and today aid is usually given to
supplement any income and resources the applicant possesses up to
this standard. However, standards in many States are still far below
what many consider necessary to secure the essentials of well-being.
Much of the increase in public assistance payments during the past
two decades reflects increased living costs. For example, although
there was an increase in the average monthly old-age assistance payment
from $15.04 to $51.89 from 1936 to 1955, the actual purchasing
power of today’s payment is $26.58 in terms of the 1936 dollar.
The 1950 amendment to the Social Security Act requiring the designation
by each State of an authority to establish and maintain standards
in institutions where assistance recipients reside has provided
an impetus for a nationwide movement to raise standards of institutional
care. There has also been increasing emphasis in administering
assistance in such a way as to help the needy person make the maximum
use of his capacities for self-help and to deal constructively with
problems which have contributed to his need for assistance.
Public assistance has helped to strengthen family life in many ways.
By aiding the needy aged, blind, or disabled individual within his
family setting, he has been enabled to remain at home without interruption
of family life because of need alone. Through aid to dependent
children the needy parent and child have been enabled to
remain together, and children have been provided the opportunity of
growing up in the setting of their own family relationships. Efforts
toward rehabilitation of the needy disabled have helped some gain
greater self-sufficiency and others to resume responsibility for the care
and support of their families. Public assistance, in supplementing the
old-age and survivors insurance program, has added to the basic
40 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
economic underpinning which has enabled the needy family to preserve,
in the face of adversity, the continuity of cherished relationships
and other strengths of family living.
Trends in Caseload and
Expenditures1
Nearly 6 million persons (5.8 million) received some form of public
assistance in June 1955—3.5 percent of the total population, or approximately
1 in 28. This represented an increase of 200,000 from
the preceding June, with the highest increase between November and
December. The year’s peak of 6.1 million was reached in March.
All programs showed increases except old-age assistance.
Expenditures for assistance payments from Federal, State, and
local funds during fiscal 1955 amounted to $2,712 million, representing
about 1 percent of personal income payments in the Nation. The
Federal share of this expenditure was $1,351 million. The 5.8-percent
increase in total expenditures reflected increases in average payments
in each of the assistance programs, owing in part to increasing expenditures
for medical care through vendor payments and higher standards
of assistance in some States.
OLD-AGE ASSISTANCE
In June 1955, 2,549,000 persons received old-age assistance, a decrease
of about 33,800 persons, or 1.3 percent, from the previous June.
The greatest monthly reduction, 8,700, occurred in October 1954 when
a substantial number of cases were closed following receipt of higher
old-age and survivor insurance benefits provided by the 1954 amendments
to the act. Only 14 States had higher caseloads at the end of
the year than at the beginning. The national average monthly payment
for old-age assistance was $52.30 in June 1955 as compared
with $51.45 a year earlier.
AID TO DEPENDENT CHILDREN
About 620,000 families received aid to dependent children in June
1955, an increase of about 38,500 families, or 6.6 percent, from the
preceding June. Increases in caseloads were general throughout the
country with reductions in only 7 States. The average payment per
family in June 1955 was $86.78 ($24.04 per person) as compared with
$85.08 per family ($23.81 per person) in June 1954.
1 Caseloads, averages, and total expenditures in all programs except general assistance
are based on data including vendor payments for medical care and cases receiving only
medical care.
Social Security Administration 41
AID TO THE BLIND
Nearly 104,000 persons received aid to the blind in June 1955, an
increase of about 3,000 during the year. Only 16 States had fewer
recipients, and 11 States had lower average assistance payments at the
end of the year than at the beginning. The national average monthly
payment in June 1955 was $57.41, as compared with $55.80 in the
previous June.
AID TO THE PERMANENTLY AND TOTALLY DISABLED
About 236,800 persons in 43 States received aid to the permanently
and totally disabled in June 1955, an increase of 25,100 from June
1954, owing largely to the relative newness of the program. The
average monthly payment was $54.93 in June 1955, as compared with
$53.51 in June 1954.
GENERAL ASSISTANCE
Some 310,000 cases received State and/or locally financed general
assistance in June 1955, an increase of 11,000 or 3.8 percent from the
preceding June. This was a decrease of 71,000 cases from the year’s
high of 381,000 reached in March. That peak represented the largest
number receiving general assistance since April 1951 but was 271,000
under the postwar peak of 652,000 in March 1950. The average payment
per case for June 1955 was $53.78, as compared with $51.62 a
year earlier.
Effect on Public Assistance of the
Expanding OASI Program
A 1954 amendment extended old-age and survivors insurance coverage
to about 10 million more people in the course of a year (over half
of them farm operators and farm workers). This is expected to have
a significant long-range effect in reducing the number of aged dependent
on assistance, since many come from agricultural groups to which
insurance coverage was extended. It is estimated that by about 1980
a very high proportion of the aged will receive old-age and survivors
insurance benefits; those who do will need old-age assistance only
if their insurance benefits are low or if they have special needs. Some
of those not receiving insurance benefits may also need old-age
assistance.
However, the immediate effect in reducing the number dependent
on public assistance is more limited. Many of those currently receiving
old-age assistance never had and are not likely to obtain cover-
368636-56-
42 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
age under the insurance program because during their working years
the coverage was limited. Others are eligible for only minimum insurance
benefits insufficient to meet their basic needs or have unusual
expenses, such as costly medical and/or nursing care. As a result,
although the proportion of aged population receiving assistance
dropped from 22.5 percent in September 1950 to 17.9 percent in June
1955, the rate of reduction was only slightly higher during 1955, the
year following the amendments, than in the preceding year (1.3 percent
as compared with 1.0 percent).
The liberalized benefits, however, resulted in an average increase
of $5 a month in the insurance benefit payment of aged persons receiving
supplementary old-age assistance. A somewhat smaller increase
was received by most wives of retired workers and most widows
receiving monthly benefits in excess of $25. Widows’ benefits at the
previous minimum of $18.80 were raised to $30 a month. As a result,
although about 86 percent of the aged receiving both assistance and
benefits in September 1954 continued to receive assistance, the amount
of assistance was reduced; 2 percent of the cases were closed. Aid to
dependent children families also receiving benefits had an average
increase of over $8 a month per family. About 73 percent had their
assistance payments reduced, and 3 percent of the cases were closed.
Payments for the other old-age assistance and aid to dependent children
cases were not reduced.
The increase in benefits resulted in a reduction of almost $2.1 million
a month in payments to those receiving both old-age assistance
and insurance benefits and $197,000 for aid to dependent children
families also receiving benefits, in September 1954. In many cases,
the increase in benefits released some State and/or local funds to
meet current unmet need of recipients.
AGED PERSONS RECEIVING BOTH INSURANCE AND ASSISTANCE
In February 1955, about 489,000 insurance beneficiaries received
old-age assistance to supplement minimum or near minimum insurance
benefits insufficient for their basic needs or to meet special needs.
They represented nearly a fifth (19.2 percent) of all old-age assistance
recipients. The number receiving both assistance and benefits increased
77 percent since September 1950 and 5.6 percent since
February 1954.
As a result of benefit increases provided by the 1954 amendments,
the average old-age assistance payment for recipients receiving both
insurance and assistance was reduced from $43.00 in February 1954
to $40.92 in February 1955. Aged beneficiary-recipients get, on the
average, a lower benefit and a lower assistance payment than those
receiving only insurance benefits or only assistance payments. For
Social Security Administration 43
recipients who were not drawing insurance benefits, the average oldage
assistance payment was $54.20.
FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN RECEIVING BOTH INSURANCE AND ASSISTANCE
More than 32,000 families received both insurance benefits and
assistance in February 1955—5.2 percent of the families receiving aid
to dependent children in February 1955 in comparison with 5.9 percent
a year earlier. Since only 1 family in 6 receives assistance
because of the death of a parent—the risk covered by the insurance
program—the aid to dependent children program is affected to a
more limited extent by expansion of insurance coverage and liberalization
of benefits.
The average assistance payment in February to families receiving
both types of benefits was $66.71; to families not receiving insurance
benefits the average assistance payment was $87.17.
Program Developments
The need for welfare services, in addition to financial assistance,
has been increasingly recognized as illness and disability became
major factors contributing to dependency, and the relatively large
number of families receiving aid because the father has deserted gave
evidence of social problems on which further help is needed. Increased
emphasis was given to the broad purpose of public assistance—
helping needy persons through the provision of income and services
to achieve as much economic and personal independence as possible.
To increase the effectiveness of administration in carrying out broad
program objectives, work undertaken during the year was based on
(1) an evaluation of changing program needs in planning to provide
assistance and services effectively; and (2) an analysis of operations
in planning for the most appropriate and efficient administration at
Federal, State, and local levels. Full utilization was made of the experience,
knowledge, and skill of all those directly concerned with the
administration of the program—State and local public assistance staff,
regional and central office staff of the Bureau, and those in other agencies
and organizations both within and outside the Department. This
was evidenced, for example, by requesting and utilizing State consideration
of policy material in early developmental stages; joint participation
of Federal, State, and local staff in projects in specific subject
areas; wide regional and central office participation in work planning;
and utilization of technical and lay advisory groups in evaluating
program needs and legislative proposals, detailed below.
44 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
Five major areas were identified on which Bureau work was focused
during the year: (1) improvement in services to needy individuals;
(2) increased understanding of the public assistance program through
citizen participation; (3) improvement in public assistance administration;
(4) improvement in methods of carrying out Federal responsibilities
in working with States; and (5) development of the defense
welfare services program.
IMPROVEMENT IN SERVICES TO NEEDY INDIVIDUALS
Improvement in services available to needy persons, including both
clarification of policy on services and obtaining skilled staff to provide
them, was considered the most important problem on which further
work was needed.
Chart 2.—MAJOR CAUSES OF DEPENDENCY OF PUBLIC ASSISTANCE RECIPIENTS,1 1955
5.1 MILLION
Need for welfare services.—Dependency of one and a third million
persons receiving federally aided assistance today is attributed primarily
to disability, chronic illness, or severe infirmities of old age.
In addition, absence of a parent accounts for need in more than half
of the 620,000 families continuing to receive aid to dependent children.
As shown in chart 2 2 nearly a fifth of the aged receiving assistance—
a These data were obtained through studies, undertaken by the Bureau with participation
of State public assistance agencies, of the characteristics of recipients of old-age
assistance, aid to the disabled, and aid to dependent children ; and more recently through
participation in the study of the homebound made by the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation
at the request of Congress.
Social Security Administration 45
some 460,000 persons—are bedridden or require a substantial amount
of care from others because of physical or mental impairment; 235,000
persons receive aid to the permanently and totally disabled; more than
100,000 persons receive aid to the blind; and 450,000 persons in 125,000
families receive aid to dependent children because of need due to the
incapacity of a parent. In addition, a high proportion of the other 2
million aged caring for their own daily needs have health and other
problems relating to aging; their average age is 75 years.
The aging, the largest group receiving public assistance, have need
for many types of services. In addition to a high incidence of chronic
illness, the aging suffer from the loss of family ties and friends, from
lack of recreational outlets, and from frequent lack of employment
opportunities irrespective of skill or physical vigor. Many need help
in getting medical care, in devising arrangements to maintain their
own homes as long as their health permits, and in obtaining suitable
institutional care if and when needed. Others can benefit from skilled
help with personal family problems. Estranged husbands and wives
might be reunited and the deserting parent helped to resume the responsibilities
and satisfactions of family living, with benefit to the
children. Undoubtedly, more old people can be enabled to make
greater use of their individual capacities and thus participate in and
contribute more effectively to family and community life.
Some recipients of public assistance who now require considerable
care from others because of age or disability could be helped to learn
how to care for themselves, thus providing the individual with a
greater degree of independence and releasing the time of others in the
family for more productive pursuits. The use of homemaker service
would enable some older people to maintain their own homes for a
longer period than would otherwise be possible. Vocational rehabilitation
and other services might help others among the younger groups
who receive public assistance to engage, as many would like to, in
some gainful work.
Emphasis on welfare services.—Federal and State interest was intensified
during the year in coordinating welfare, medical, vocational,
and other services with financial assistance to help needy persons become
self-sufficient to the full extent of their capacities. The Bureau
of Public Assistance worked with other Bureaus in the Department
and with national voluntary social agencies in planning for the development
and utilization of other needed community resources in order
to make available to public assistance recipients services that will contribute
to the improvement of their capacity for self-help or self-care.
Interest in welfare services was stimulated by the release of the
draft report on services in the aid to dependent children program
developed by the working group composed of staff from both the
46 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
Children’s Bureau and the Bureau of Public Assistance. The report
was sent to all State public assistance and child welfare agencies
and provided a basis for joint study of the need for services in general
and the specific needs in the aid to dependent children program.
On the basis of joint planning by regional staff of both Bureaus, seven
regional conferences including 38 States were held during the year.
These were attended by administrators, program supervisors of aid
to dependent children and child welfare services, and in some instances
by other State and local staff. The report was discussed individually
with the other States and Territories. Similar group discussion has
been held in the Bureau’s central office and regional offices, with full
staff participation. The regional staff of both agencies is continuing
to encourage, among State and local staff, wider group discussion of
concepts in the report and the further exploration, testing, and development
of the quality of the job now being done.
The Bureau is attempting to give encouragement to the work already
being undertaken in the expansion of needed services over the country
by State and local governments, private organizations, and others
interested in the welfare of people. It has especially continued its
participation in the activities of many groups in stimulating the development
of needed services for the aged.
The Bureau is represented on the Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare’s Committee on Aging, which is concerned with broad
needs of the aging population and how the programs of the constituent
units of the Department may cooperate in meeting them. The Bureau
continued its collaboration with the National Social Welfare
Assembly’s National Committee on Aging. A Bureau staff member
led one of the workshops at the Assembly’s Annual Meeting and is
also chairing a committee to advise on the development of a pamphlet
on agency examples of casework services for the aging. Participation
has also continued on the American Public Welfare Association’s
Committee on Aging.
A cooperative project during the year was a joint meeting between
the Bureau and the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, attended
by several State administrators of public assistance and vocational
rehabilitation programs and a selected regional representative from
each constituent. This conference provided opportunity for comment
and suggestions on ways to make more helpful to State agencies
the document on “Working Together To Rehabilitate the Needy
Disabled,” developed and planned for joint release by the two Bureaus.
The Bureau also participated with other groups concerned with
improved coordination between voluntary and public agencies in providing
casework services, including the Family Service Association
of America and the National Social Welfare Assembly’s Conference
Social Security Administration 47
on Individualized Services. Similarly, work with the National Legal
Aid Society was initiated in identifying needs of public assistance
recipients and encouraging State and local agencies to participate in
the development of legal aid services.
There also has been increased activity on the part of State agencies
in developing services and in making maximum use of other community
resources and a corresponding increase in requests to the
Bureau for assistance in this area. During the year, work was initiated
within the Bureau on statements of the broad areas of social
welfare services appropriately included in public assistance administration
and the role of public assistance agencies in providing and
securing them. Background materials are being collected which
reflect recent experience of public assistance agencies in the development
of constructive services. Work is also continuing on a statement
on the use of homemaker services and experiences of several
States in this area.
Need for more skilled staff.—The skill and helpfulness with which
the services of the agency are made available to the needy individual
will in large measure determine whether he will be encouraged to
make maximum use of his own capacities. Adequate service, however,
depends largely on the technical skill of staff. Public agencies generally
have been unable to establish qualifications and salaries for
staff at a level that will assure the professional skill needed. Through
staff development programs, State public assistance agencies in many
instances have enabled untrained workers to improve the quality of
service provided. Professional training, however, is needed to assure
that skilled services are provided to needy persons in order to achieve
the full objectives of the public assistance programs.
As indicated in chart 3 less than 2 percent of public assistance staff
in casework jobs had full social work training—2 years of study in a
graduate school of social work. Yet public assistance staff was responsible
in 1955 for dealing with nearly 6 million persons dependent on
public assistance, many of whom had serious individual and family
problems. Although an additional 15 percent of the caseworkers had
some social work training, more than two-thirds of these had less than
1 year of training. The largest number, 49 percent, had only undergraduate
college training, or graduate training in other fields, and
about 9 percent had only high school training or less.
The low salary of these caseworkers, averaging $2,569 in 1950, even
though increased since, has contributed to both the inability to secure
professionally trained workers and the high rate of turnover of public
assistance personnel. In 1954, for example, more than a fourth of all
persons leaving public assistance casework positions had been in their
jobs less than 1 year; the educational qualifications of those leaving
48 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
Chart 3.—EDUCATION AND SALARY OF PUBLIC ASSISTANCE CASEWORKERS
PUBLIC ASSISTANCE CASEWORKERS
EDUCATION
SALARY
Source: Public Social Welfare Personnel (1950), Bureau of Public Assistance and Children’s Bureau,
1953.
were slightly higher than those of the new workers recruited. With
only 15 percent of the jobs paying over $3,000 in 1950, public assistance
cannot compete for the limited supply of trained social work staff
available in the country or induce young people to seek such training.
In the consultation provided individually to 22 States and to groups
of States in 6 regions during the year, emphasis was placed on evaluating
current staff development programs and on long-range planning
to provide for continuing progress in ways and means of improving
the quality of agency services. A subcommittee of the Committee on
Personnel and Training advisory to both the Bureau of Public Assistance
and the Children’s Bureau will participate in the formulation
of criteria for States to use in their long-range staff development
planning.
Case records and recruitment materials were distributed to the
States to facilitate their work. Recordings and films, including two
new Arizona films—“Rehabilitation of the Blind” and “The Rehabilitation
Team in Action”—and “Family Affair,” produced by the Family
Service Association of America, were also made available on loan.
The Bureau has also worked with the American Public Welfare Association’s
Committee on Social Work Education and Personnel which
has been active in a variety of areas concerning the education and
standards for personnel in public welfare agencies.
Social Security Administration 49
The Bureau has also continued cooperative work with the Council
on Social Work Education, primarily on development of recruitment
and teaching materials on administration and supervision and on curriculum
content. In an effort to improve the quality of public welfare
services, the Council has recently obtained a grant from a private
foundation for a 3-year study, beginning August 1, 1955, on educational
preparation needed for public social services.
Emphasis was also placed on following up recommendations made
by the Committee on Personnel and Training meeting in June 1954.
The committee meeting in June 1955 recommended that continued
effort be placed on developing more adequate plans for financing the
education of public assistance staff and expansion of teaching facilities
in schools of social work.
INCREASED UNDERSTANDING OF THE PUBLIC ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
THROUGH CITIZEN PARTICIPATION
Effort was made during the year to extend understanding of the
public assistance programs through planning for increased use of
citizen participation in its administration. Exploratory work initiated
last year in planning for the use of volunteers to supplement
agency services for recipients and to increase understanding of the
public assistance programs was continued during the year, with the
help of an experienced volunteer. Review was made of selected volunteer
programs currently in operation; interpretive material was provided
on the value of volunteer service in a public welfare agency; and
criteria were developed concerning the provision of supplementary
services by volunteers.
The role of Federal, State, and local governments in furthering
citizen participation in providing supplementary services was considered
by an ad hoc advisory committee, including representatives
from North Carolina, New York, the District of Columbia, Ohio, and
Kansas, and staff of the American Public Welfare Association and
constituent units in the Department. A report of this meeting was
distributed to participants of the committee and will be sent to State
agencies.
Consideration was also given to other aspects of citizen participation
in public assistance administration, especially through membership
on local administrative and advisory boards. Material was prepared
for State use on the functions of boards in public assistance
administration. This included detailed information about boards
currently functioning in public assistance programs throughout the
country and recommendations for consideration of proposed changes
in State public assistance legislation concerning types of boards, their
functions, size, method of appointment, and qualifications and terms
of office of members.
50 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
IMPROVEMENT IN PUBLIC ASSISTANCE ADMINISTRATION
To improve the quality of administration and service of the public
assistance program, study has been made of many phases of Federal,
State, and local operations. Reshifting of workload necessitated by
reduced appropriations and changing program objectives resulted in
reappraisal and further streamlining of Bureau functions to enable
it both to assure that provisions of the Social Security Act are carried
out in practice and to develop materials and provide consultation in
the welfare services area. Regional and central office staff participated
in this reappraisal, which resulted in recommendations for a series
of improvements subsequently used as the basis of further work planning.
A time study of regional office activities was also initiated early
in the year. Some progress has also been made in simplifying and
achieving increased integration in work planning and related reporting
of the regional offices.
Analysis was made of variations among States in the cost of administering
the public assistance programs and the factors causing the
variations. Policies and operations which appear to have resulted in
differences in the average caseload per visitor were analyzed, since this
factor accounted for about three-fourths of the interstate variation in
costs. State agencies furnished much of the basic information for
this study and a committee, representing States with high, medium,
and low administrative costs, participated in exploring the various
factors affecting cost variations.
Study was also initiated on facets of administration of large urban
welfare agencies which present special management problems because
of their size and volume of assistance and services provided. Representatives
of State agencies responsible for the administration of
public assistance programs in the six largest cities in the country met
with Bureau staff to consider problems of administrative management
and State supervision resulting from local agency size and urban
setting. Discussion focused on methods for carrying out the State
supervisory function, staffing patterns, workloads, and other factors
affecting the costs of administration.
Reviews of State and local administration were conducted by
Bureau staff in 25 States with focus on consideration of eligibility
determination and correctness of amount of payment in 20 States.
In the others, one or more of the following subject areas were examined
: State supervision of local operations, hearings, relatives’ responsibility,
operation of the State review team, and promptness in applications.
Findings were discussed with the responsible State officials,
and summaries of review findings were prepared for adminisrative use
in the Bureau.
Social Security Administration 51
Consultation and other help was provided to State agencies on
many management subjects, including surveys of administrative and
fiscal procedures, planning for operational changes, development of
management guides for local staff, appraisal of the work of special
investigating units, distribution of illustrative State materials on
manuals and other types of written instructions, and methods for
State determination of workloads and staff for local agencies. Developmental
work by Bureau staff continued on fiscal provisions of State
operations; principles governing Federal financial participation in
the costs of office space, medical care, welfare services, defense activities,
and administrative costs for several States; fiscal accountability
by State agencies; case recording; and measurement of the quantity
and quality of the visitor’s job. Bureau staff participated in sections
on management problems in State conferences, American Public
Welfare Association regional conferences, and other meetings on this
subject.
Legislative proposals.—Although no Federal legislation pertaining
to public assistance was passed in fiscal 1955, study of program needs
led to legislative recommendations included in H. R. 3293 introduced
on January 31, 1955. Bureau staff participated in the preliminary
work done on these legislative proposals by a task force including
representatives of interested constituent units within the Department.
The task force appraised the need for legislation, defined
possible areas for action, and made estimates of their cost. The legislative
proposals were reviewed by the executive committee of the
American Public Welfare Association, including State public welfare
directors, and leaders of voluntary groups invited by the Secretary
to advise Department officials on matters requiring legislative action.
IMPROVEMENT IN METHODS OF CARRYING OUT FEDERAL RESPONSIBILITIES
IN WORKING WITH STATES
Attention was also directed toward improvement in methods of
working with States. Effort was made to clarify Federal and State
responsibilities, identify principles in working relationships with
States, determine the best way to present Federal requirements to
States, and distinguish between these requirements and the objectives
toward which States may work in bringing about improvement in
program administration.
Sections of the Bureau Handbook of Public Assistance Administration
dealing with Federal and State responsibility, sent to State
agencies in draft form, provided a vehicle for joint consideration of
Federal requirements in general, and specific aspects of Federal and
State working relationships. Reports of regional staff discussions
52 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
with State agencies were compiled and used in the reappraisal made of
Bureau functions. Other sections of the Handbook were prepared
dealing more specifically with the responsibilities of a single State
agency and the statewide operation of the public assistance programs,
based on requirements in the act.
Review was also initiated of Federal requirements affecting State
administration of public assistance programs. Effort was made to
identify principles and criteria pertinent to such a review, and to
identify Federal requirements around which problems have arisen
or otherwise are in need of further consideration or revision.
DEFENSE WELFARE SERVICES
Responsibility for planning national emergency financial assistance
and clothing programs was included in the delegation by the Federal
Civil Defense Administration to the Department. This delegation
was made so that these civil defense activities, as well as others,
would be built into and become part of the normal functions of government.
Following assignment of these programs to the Social Security
Administration, responsibility was given to the Bureau of Public
Assistance in December 1954, since the network of public welfare
agencies throughout the country, with facility for extending assistance
and services to people in need of them in every community, provided
both the framework for integrating the newly developing
program and the basic principles and methods to be used in dealing
with people in time of stress.
In carrying out its defined responsibility for developing technical
guidance for States and directing Federal activities concerned with
financial assistance and clothing for the temporary relief or aid of
civilians injured or in want as a result of attack, the Bureau has
been working through State public welfare agencies and is utilizing
the advice and counsel of State agency staff, as it does in other
programs for which it is responsible.
A series of meetings were held with regional and State public
welfare agency staff in eight regions to discuss proposed plans,
policies, and procedures for the two programs. This series of meetings
followed consultation with a committee of State administrators.
Other activities included the establishment of a Defense Welfare
Services staff within the Bureau; organization and training of this
staff; preparation of a memorandum of understanding between the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Federal Civil
Defense Administration; conferences with clothing industry representatives
and other clothing specialists; and analysis of State civil
defense plans.
Social Security Administration 53
Children’s Bureau
The Children’s Bureau was created in 1912 by an act of Congress
to investigate and report upon all matters pertaining to the welfare
of children and child life among all classes of our people. In 1935
the Children’s Bureau was given the additional responsibility of
administering the grants to the States provided under the Social
Security Act, Title V, to enable them to extend and improve the services
for promoting the health and welfare of children, especially in
rural areas and in areas of special need.
In recent years the Children’s Bureau has directed special attention
toward the conditions of life for the infant and preschool child.
Its efforts in this direction were continued during 1955 through its
research studies and the interdependent child health and welfare
programs, implemented in part by grants to the States for maternal
and child health, crippled children, and child welfare services.
The Children’s Bureau placed special emphasis, during 1955, on
bulwarking opportunities for development for the older child. “The
Adolescent in Your Family,” a bulletin for parents, was published
and widely distributed. Technical assistance was strengthened for
the State and local coordinating committees for children and youth in
which the young people themselves are active. A Division of Juvenile
Delinquency Service was established within the Bureau to provide
technical consultation to States and communities on the prevention
and treatment of juvenile delinquency.
Some Facts and Figures About Child Life
The number of live births in 1954 exceeded 4 million, reaching a new
all-time high. The estimated birth rate, 25.3 per 1,000 total population,
is close to the highest in the past 30 years.
The U. S. child population under 18 years increased from 47 million
in 1950 to about 54 million in 1954, a 15-percent rise. Between 1954
and 1965, the number of children under 18 years is expected to rise by
almost 25 percent to a total of 67 million in 1965. In this period the
10-to-17-year-olds will increase by about 50 percent as the large
number of children born in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s enter this
age group. In 1952, 42 percent of the children in the United States
were living in rural areas.
The infant mortality rate for the first 11 months of 1954 was estimated
at 26.6 per 1,000 live births, the lowest so far recorded. Many
of the States continue to show marked deviations from the national
average.
54 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
About 310,000 infants were prematurely born in 1954. Fifty-eight
percent of neonatal deaths and 41 percent of infant deaths were reported
as associated with prematurity. In 1952,4 percent of reported
pregnancies which reached 20 weeks or more of gestation resulted
in a stillborn infant or death in the neonatal period.
The maternal mortality rate in 1954 was the lowest ever recorded
(estimated at 5.3 maternal deaths per 10,000 live births). Maternal
mortality has declined without interruption since 1929 when the rate
was 69.5 per 10,000. In 1952, over 155,000 births occurred among
mothers who were delivered without a physician in attendance.
Twenty-three percent of births to mothers in the nonwhite group and
8 percent of births to mothers resident outside of metropolitan
counties had no medical attendant at delivery.
In 1952 accidents took the lives of 17,121 children, 1-19 years of
age and accounted for 36.3 percent of the mortality of this age group.
Mortality due to accidents was highest in the 15-19 age group; the rate
was 37.2 per 100,000 children. Cancer has become the leading cause
of death due to disease among children 5-19 years of age. Next in
importance among all fatal diseases are these: diseases of the heart
and acute rheumatic fever among children 15-19 years, acute poliomyelitis
in children 5-14 years, and congenital malformations in the
preschool group.
The estimated 1,476,000 marriages in 1954 were 4 percent fewer
than in 1953. The marriage rate of 9.2 marriages per 1,000 population
in 1954 was the lowest since 1933. However, the proportion of married
persons in the population, thanks to higher rates in earlier years,
is relatively high. In 1954 close to 69 percent of the adult population
were married; in 1940 the percentage was 60.
Forty-five percent of the 390,000 divorces in 1953 involved families
with children under 18 years of age. About one-third of a million
children had their families broken by divorce in this one year.
In 1953, about 2.9 million children under 18 years, or 1 in 20 of the
Nation’s children, had lost one or both parents by death. This represents
a sharp drop from the number of orphans in the country in 1920
when there were 6.4 million orphaned children, or 1 in 6 children, in
the population. The decline in the number of full orphans has been
particularly striking—from 750,000 in 1920 to about 66,000 in 1953.
An estimated 150,300 children were born out of wedlock during
1952 (54,100 white; 96,200 nonwhite). This number was about 3 percent
more than the estimated 146,500 children born out of wedlock
during 1951. There were 58,700 unmarried mothers 15-19 years of age,
or 39 percent of those who bore illegitimate children in 1952. Of
every 1,000 unmarried women between 15 and 44 years, 15.2 gave birth
to a child out of wedlock in 1952.
Social Security Administration 55
Ail analysis of children living in institutions, based primarily on
data from the 1950 U. S. Census of Population, shows that more than
a quarter million children under 21 years of age (260,429) were
living in institutions of all types in the United States in April 1950.
Almost 23,000 of these children were under 6 years of age. A sizable
number were in institutions primarily designed for adults, such as
prisons and reformatories, jails or workhouses, and homes for the aged
and dependent. Of the 260,429 children under 21 years of age living
in institutions of all types, about one-third (95,260) were living in
institutions for dependent and neglected children. This represents
a decrease of about 34 percent since 1933. For the country as a whole,
81 percent of the 95,260 children were in institutions for dependent and
neglected children operated under private auspices.
The U. S. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency
estimated that there are 200,000 to 300,000 boys and girls who
run away from home annually in the United States.
Police arrest data reported by the F. B. I. in its Uniform Crime
Reports for 1,005 cities show that the arrests of juveniles (under 18)
increased 2.3 percent in 1954 over 1953. In 1954, juveniles represented
57.6 percent of all persons arrested for auto theft, 49 percent for
burglaries, 44 percent for larcenies.
Statistical data available to the Bureau for 1954 showed the sixth
consecutive annual increase in the number of delinquency cases reported
by the juvenile courts. An estimated 475,000 children came
to the attention of juvenile courts in 1954 because of delinquent behaviour.
This number exceeded the previous high experienced during
World War II.
Children With Special Needs
The problems of certain groups of children call for special attention.
Some of the more serious are: the adolescent in conflict with
society, the children of agricultural migratory workers, mentally retarded
children, and children in unprotected adoptions.
The Nation as a whole is concerned about juvenile delinquency because
of its tragic consequences for the individual young person, its
contagion among youth, and its social and economic costs for the
community. For the past several years the Children’s Bureau has
given particular attention to the problems of delinquent children.
This emphasis is continuing through the coordinated program of the
new Division of Juvenile Delinquency Service (see page 63).
For the country as a whole, it has been estimated that there are
many hundred thousand children of migrant agricultural workers.
It is difficult for any single State to take responsibility for the health,
56 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
welfare, and education of the children in those families since they are
on the move so much of the year. Because these children are not
residents they frequently do not receive the services that are available
to other children in the communities through which they travel.
The Children’s Bureau, working with the Office of Education, the
Public Health Service, and the Bureau of Public Assistance, is stimulating
a pilot project along the East Coast. The purpose of this project
is to encourage the 10 States involved in the East Coast migrant
stream to do interstate planning for services to migrants so that each
State can more easily perform its share of the total job.
The exact number of mentally retarded children is not known, but
it is estimated that about 1 person per 100 is mentally defective and
that about 750,000 children of school age are of low intelligence. As
the birth rate goes up the number of such children increases. At
the same time the growing complexity of our society makes their social
and vocational adjustment ever more difficult. Parents, doctors,
nurses, educators, and social workers are increasingly concerned about
the health and welfare of these children. The number of parent
groups pressing for action for this special group of children is growing
rapidly.
Unprotected adoptions in which children are placed without the
benefit of social agency skills is a subject of much study and controversy.
Because of the seriousness of the black market in adoptions the
Bureau is seeking advice from legal, medical, social work, and other
professional groups and from adoptive parents and law enforcement
agencies. Conferences with the professional groups were begun in
1955, and the work will be more fully developed in 1956.
Federal Interdepartmental Committee on
Children and Youth
The Congress places responsibility upon a number of the agencies
of the United States Government for programs which contribute in
varying degrees to the social well-being of children and youth. In
1948 the President requested these agencies to form an Interdepartmental
Committee on Children and Youth to assist each other in keeping
informed about program developments, to work together for
greater effectiveness in program planning, and to strengthen working
relationships between the Federal Government and the States. This
triple assignment has been carried out during the fiscal year 1955
by the regular monthly meetings of the full Committee, the work of
its subcommittees, and an informational exchange with the State
committees. Twenty-eight Federal agencies are represented on the
Committee.
Social Security Administration 57
Much of the work of the Interdepartmental Committee goes forward
through the activities of subcommittees appointed to deal with
special problems which are timely and involve a number of Federal
agencies. At present there are seven subcommittees. These are concerned
with Children of Agricultural Migrants, Transition from
School to Work, Children in the Territories and Islands of the United
States, Juvenile Delinquency, Mental Retardation, Care of American-
Related Children Outside the United States, and the Business of Being
a Parent in This Decade.
The Committee exchanges information with the 53 State and Territorial
Committees on Children and Youth. It publishes, irregularly,
a newsletter, “What’s Happening for Children and Youth,”
and sends pertinent Federal publications to the State and Territorial
Committees. The Children’s Bureau furnishes secretarial assistance
to the Interdepartmental Committee on Children and Youth.
Programs of the Bureau
RESEARCH IN CHILD LIFE
The Bureau’s small research staff, working under the guidelines
of a newly developed plan, is helping to carry out the legislative
mandate “to investigate and report upon all matters pertaining to
the welfare of children.” Research on programs for disadvantaged
children has been emphasized this year. In addition to its own studies
and those conducted jointly with others, the Bureau has sought to
stimulate research in child life by other agencies by formulating
the questions requiring study and developing research methods and
has assisted agencies engaged in such research.
In its technical research, studies of the costs and effectiveness of
various programs have received major emphasis. Study subjects included
the unit costs of child placement and institutional care of
children, methods of evaluative research as illustrated in studies of
psychotherapy, and a review of studies on the evaluation of school
health services. Improvement in methods of reporting for maternal
and infant mortality studies has been stressed as a guide for the preventive
programs of the medical profession. Work continued on
assembling information about programs and services for mentally
retarded children. Throughout the country juvenile delinquency is
being studied from both the psychological aspect of the inner motivations
of the child and the sociological factors in the environment. In
an attempt to bridge the gap between these two approaches, the
Bureau conducted a conference of experts from both fields. A report
of this conference for use by research workers is in preparation.
368636—56------5
58 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
Statistical reporting of State expenditures and services under the
grant-in-aid programs was improved. A new report on maternal
and child health services was developed. Special report forms have
been developed which will provide an unduplicated count of the number
of children served by public child welfare agencies annually, data
on persons granted educational leave from public child welfare programs,
and information on the professional training of child welfare
workers in the State programs. A reporting system to provide more
accurate data on juvenile court cases has been initiated.
As part of its research interpretation activities, the Bureau published
The Adolescent in Your Family and a revised edition of Infant
Care and proceeded with a revision of Your Child From One to Six.
Two supplements of Research Relating to Children were issued to
help investigators in the field of child life keep informed about
studies being conducted in their areas of special interest. More than
1,000 individual letters were written in reply to personal inquiries
concerning a variety of problems relating to children.
The research staff provided technical consultation requested by
State health departments on studies in areas such as evaluation of
child health conferences, health records for children of agricultural
migrants, maternal and infant mortality, pregnancy, hospital care of
premature infants, use of vital records, and fetal and neonatal wastage.
State welfare departments and voluntary organizations were assisted
in studies on such problems as unit costs in child placement, independent
adoptions of children, delinquency prevention, training
school staff development, drug addiction among juveniles, and community
services for children.
MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH SERVICES
All the States, the District of Columbia, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto
Rico, and the Virgin Islands receive Federal funds to extend and
improve services for promoting the health of mothers and children.
The State maternal and child health agencies report that increases
occurred from 1953 to 1954 in most maternal and child health services
provided. The number of expectant mothers receiving services at
prenatal clinics increased from about 178,000 in 1953 to 192,000 in
1954. Mothers receiving postpartum medical examinations also
increased.
Well-child clinics provided services for about 1 million infants and
preschool children in 1954. One-and-a-half times that number received
nursing service through State maternal and child health programs.
About 2% million examinations by physicians and slightly
over 3 million dental inspections were provided to school children,
who also received over 2 million home and office nursing visits. More
than 2 million children were given diphtheria immunizations and
Social Security Administration 59
about the same number received smallpox immunizations in 1954.
Various other services were also provided to mothers and children.
During 1955 the Bureau analyzed the total expenditures of combined
Federal, State, and local funds for the maternal and child
health programs in fiscal 1954. This was of particular interest because,
for the first time, the States reported the estimated total cost of
the program. In previous years, reporting had been limited to expenditures
of Federal and of legally required matching funds. Total
maternal and child health expenditures for 1954 amounted to over
$53 million, or more than 2i/> times the Federal and required matching
funds reported in 1953.
To better prepare health personnel for their maternal and child
health programs many States carried out institutes and other special
training projects. In fiscal 1954, the State agencies spent almost
$250,000 for training programs to improve the skills of professional
personnel in the maternal and child health field. In addition, special
projects having training as the major objective were maintained by
a quarter of the States, with the help of Federal funds. For example:
the California State Department of Public Health with the School
of Social Welfare of the University of California established scholarships
and an internship program for medical social workers interested
in public health and medical care programs; the Massachusetts Department
of Public Health and the Harvard School of Public Health
held a 2-week institute on child growth and development for medical
social work teachers; and the special project at the Homer Phillips
Hospital in St. Louis for improving training in pediatrics for Negro
physicians became a reality.
Increased regional interest in care of the premature infant has
developed since Colorado initiated a one-day postgraduate institute
program on care of premature and newborn infants for physicians,
public health nurses, hospital nurses, and hospital administrators.
The team has presented six such programs this year in Colorado and
Wyoming. Requests for next fiscal year have been received from other
areas in Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, New Mexico, and Nebraska.
The premature institute program conducted by the Cornell-New
York Medical Center continues to prove a popular training opportunity
for both physicians and nurses. A total of 109 teams coming
from 24 States and Hawaii has attended the institutes between 1949
and 1954.
The following publications relating to maternal and child health
were prepared and/or published during the year: Medical Social
Service for Hospitalized Children; Children’s Shoes and Footwear:
Nutrition and Health Growth; Your Premature Baby; and The
Child 'With Rheumatic Fever.
60 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
The Bureau sponsored two conferences on Health Services and
Juvenile Delinquency which brought together workers concerned with
the various facets of the problem of juvenile delinquency.
CRIPPLED CHILDREN’S SERVICES
All the 53 States and Territories, with the exception of Arizona,
are participating in the crippled children’s program. The expenditures
of Federal, State, and local funds for this program for the
fiscal year 1954, totaled more than $36 million, of which $11.1 million
represented Federal funds. The objective of these programs is to
locate children in need of care and provide the means of restoration
through diagnosis, medical and surgical treatment, and alleviation
of unfavorable social and psychological influences which contribute
toward the degree and duration of the disability.
In 1954 an estimated 271,000 children—more children than in any
previous year—received physicians’ services from State crippled
children’s agencies. The 1954 total for children served represents an
8-percent increase over 1953 and an increase of 26 percent since 1950.
Substantial gains were reported in the number of children receiving
clinic service (an increase of 9 percent) and in the number receiving
physicians’ services through home or office visits (an increase of
almost 13 percent). Children served in clinics numbered 221,000 and
constituted more than four-fifths of all children under the program;
about 48,000 children received physicians’ services through home or
office visits. Hospital inpatient care was provided to over 43,000
children.
State crippled children’s agencies are broadening their programs
to include more kinds of handicapping conditions and are experimenting
with new types of services. A notable example of this is new
approaches to the preschool blind child. The Michigan Legislature
has approved a special project of the State department of health to
provide more extensive services for preschool blind children and their
parents. Indiana is holding an institute for parents of preschool
blind children.
There is increasing interest by the State crippled children’s agencies
in the care of children with amputations. A team for care of these
patients has been trained at Duke University and another qualified
team is at work at the new rehabilitation center at the University of
Louisville. Plans have been made for facilities for amputee children
in West Virginia. At Grand Rapids, Michigan, a midwestern amputee
training center is opening to serve handicapped children from nearby
States. Plans have been worked out cooperatively with the Army
Prosthetic Research Laboratory for the production of the improved
ARRL hand in children’s sizes. Hands, mechanisms, and gloves will
be produced and paid for in Michigan and will be available to child
Social Security Administration 61
amputees in other States. A service for children requiring upper
extremity prosthesis has been established in Los Angeles which will
serve children from other States as well as California’s own.
CHILD WELFARE SERVICES
Over 280,000 children were receiving child welfare services from
State and local public welfare agencies according to a cross-section
count on the day of March 31, 1955, as reported to the Bureau. In
the 50 States and Territories reporting, 40 percent of the children
receiving services were living with their own parents or relatives, 42
percent were in foster family homes, and 18 percent were living in
institutions or elsewhere.
In its child welfare services the Bureau consults with State public
and voluntary agencies in planning and operating their child welfare
program. It also administers the grant-in-aid funds for child welfare
services and develops guides, recommendations for practice, and informational
materials in relation to the child welfare program as a whole
and for specialized services, such as social services to children in their
own homes, homemaker services, services to unmarried mothers, and
foster family and group care programs.
The marked increase in child population gives all aspects of developments
within the child welfare program added importance. The
past year has seen some basic changes in administration in several
States. Connecticut, which has had a State-operated program for
children under 6, enacted legislation to bring responsibility for the
care of “neglected and uncared for” children over 6 years of age into
the same program. Kentucky, Maryland, and Pennsylvania have consolidated
the various statewide public services for children in one
program within the public welfare department. Tennessee has given
permanent status to the State Commission on Youth Guidance whose
early work resulted, this year, in a completely new juvenile court law.
Many State legislatures are showing a greater awareness and concern
over the need for increased child welfare funds and are making an
effort to find more adequate revenue. Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania,
and Vermont are greatly expanding services and are recruiting
additional qualified staff. Michigan has succeeded in legislative
efforts to provide grant-in-aid State funds for foster home care to
counties on an equalization basis, and both Alabama and Florida are
increasing their State funds for child welfare.
Nationwide shortages in personnel, affecting all professions, are
reflected in social work. Lack of staff and turnover continue to be outstanding
problems for State agencies and all groups interested in
child welfare. The Council of Social Work Education, the schools
of social work, State and local departments of welfare, and Federal
agencies are working together to enrich staff development programs
62 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
as a means of developing the competence of existing workers. The
States are focusing on increasing supervisory and consultant skills.
The Bureau has been helping States strengthen the work of their staffs
in casework practice, supervision, policies, procedures, and attitudes
through institutes and consultation. Educational leave, made possible
through the use of Federal child welfare funds, continues to be a
mainstay for the States in developing staff competence.
Among new State projects financed by child welfare services funds
are: strengthening of the adoption program under public auspices in
Vermont; a forestry camp for older delinquent boys in Maryland;
four additional child welfare workers in Cook County, Illinois, to
strengthen the public social services with respect to independent placement
of children.
Cooperative work with other agencies within the Social Security
Administration has included Bureau participation on several interbureau
committees. These include: the Ad Hoc Working Group on
Guardianship with the Bureau of Public Assistance and the Bureau
of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and the interbureau Committee
on Common Social Welfare Matters which includes representatives of
the Office of the Commissioner in addition to the Bureaus named
above.
The Children’s Bureau continued its joint planning with the Bureau
of Public Assistance on services to children in aid to dependent
children families. The document prepared in draft last year was
discussed with State agency staff members in conferences under the
cooperative leadership of regional child welfare and public assistance
representatives.
There have been other evidences of progress in the provision of
services to children in their own homes. Massachusetts has passed
basic legislation for the protection of dependent and neglected children,
with a declaration of policy toward the strengthening and encouragement
of family life. The southeastern States are proud of
their high percentage of children receiving public casework services
in their own homes rather than in institutions or foster homes. Many
States are voicing a realization that, if social services for children were
adequate, more children could remain in their own homes and delinquent
behavior might be greatly reduced.
Social agencies are giving increased attention to those children
whom neighbors, the police, and others report for serious abuse or
neglect and children whose families may, at first, be reluctant to take
advantage of community aids in times of trouble. In addition, special
projects to identify and plan for the hard core problem families in
the community have been initiated in San Mateo County, California;
St. Paul, Minnesota; Washington County, Maryland; and St. Louis
and Kansas City, Missouri.
Social Security Administration 63
Homemaker service is provided by 104 agencies in 74 cities in 29
States and Puerto Rico. Of these, 83 are voluntary and 21 public.
A great many are for services to the aged but a number are devoted
to children and their families.
Unmarried mothers present a dual challenge for the Bureau and
the State and voluntary child welfare agencies. In the first instance,
over one-third of these mothers are themselves adolescents and in
need of protection and guidance. Secondly, the babies need to be protected
from the special hazards which confront them. The Bureau
is taking leadership in exploring the extent of the problem and the
contributions which the several professions of law, medicine, and
social work can make in safeguarding the mother and child. Basically,
the need is for adequate medical, social, and legal services
available to the mother under conditions she can accept.
The spotlight has been on adoptions with their tremendous increase
from around 16,000 in 1934 to around 95,000 in 1954, approximately
half of these being with nonrelatives. The National Conference on
Adoptions, held in Chicago on January 26-29, 1955, under the
auspices of the Child Welfare League of America and the exploration
by the Children’s Bureau of the “black market” in babies have contributed
to nationwide thinking. In June 1955 the Children’s Bureau
called a conference of 31 national agencies and organizations
directly concerned with the three parties to adoption—the child, his
natural parents, and the adoptive applicants. The Bureau has also
been working cooperatively with Federal agencies having statutory
responsibility for intercountry adoptions and for bringing foreign
children into the United States for adoption and care.
Foster care of children, both in foster family homes and institutions,
is a heavy responsibility of State public welfare agencies both in terms
of numbers of children and expenditure of public funds. The number
of children receiving foster family care under public agency
auspices increased from 49,000 in 1933 to 114,000 in 1952, or 133 percent;
during this same period, the Nation’s child population increased
14 percent. The majority of the children receiving foster care are
cared for in foster family homes. About 56,000 additional children
are estimated to be in foster family care under the auspices of voluntary
child welfare casework agencies. An important trend in group
care is the development of small group homes in the community for
adolescents who cannot take root in foster family homes and children
who need temporary shelter. Specialized group facilities are also
being developed for emotionally disturbed children.
JUVENILE DELINQUENCY SERVICE PROGRAM
For the sixth consecutive year there has been an increase in the num64
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
ber of delinquency cases reported by juvenile courts. Public interest
in the problem of juvenile delinquency remains at a high level. Newspapers
continue to devote considerable space to the problem, and additional
funds were provided by Congress to permit the Senate subcommittee
to continue its investigations of juvenile delinquency.
Evidence of this general interest is also reflected by activities taking
place in the States. In at least a third of the States some action at
the State level relating to delinquency has been taken. This has taken
the form of new legislation, either relating to the juvenile court
statute or the statutes relating to the administrative structure of State
agencies providing service to delinquent children, or both, or in the
form of studies or surveys of State services for delinquent children.
For the fiscal year 1955 the Congress made a supplemental appropriation
of $75,000 to enable the Bureau to expand its services in the
field of juvenile delinquency. On October 6, 1954, the Secretary of
the Department authorized the creation of a Division of Juvenile
Delinquency Service in the Children’s Bureau.
The primary responsibility of the new Division is to provide technical
consultation to States and communities relating to the following
types of service or care: police work with juveniles; courts and probation
services; institutional care for delinquent children including
training schools, forestry camps, and detention care; legal aspects of
delinquency including legislation, community coordination, and planning
for the prevention, control, and treatment of delinquency; group
work activities with potentially delinquent gangs; and training programs
for personnel, professional and nonprofessional, working with
delinquent youth.
Working relations have been established by this Division with many
national organizations concerned with juvenile delinquency, as well
as with the several Federal agencies carrying some responsibility for
its prevention, control, and treatment. In response to State and local
requests, consultation has been provided in the areas of training
schools, juvenile police services, statewide surveys, State legislation,
juvenile courts, and the training of institutional, probation, and police
personnel.
The major attention given by the Bureau over the past year in the
field of juvenile delinquency is reflected in 9 publications on the subject.
Six new bulletins issued were: Training Personnel for Work
With Juvenile Delinquency; Parents and Delinquency ; The Effectiveness
of Delinquency Prevention Programs; Tentative Standards for
Training Schools; a directory of Public Training Schools for Delinquent
Children; and a report on the Secretary’s National Conference
on Juvenile Delinquency held in June 1954. Three more
bulletins in preparation were: a revision of Some Facts About Juvenile
Delinquency; a bibliography on Juvenile Delinquency: Practice and
Social Security Administration 65
Research; and a report on the Bureau’s conference on Health Services
and Dissocial Behavior.
The Special Juvenile Delinquency Project, which was supported
by voluntary organizations and foundations and closely coordinated
with the Bureau, was dissolved in July 1955.
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
The international program has moved along this year with no
radical internal changes in policy or administration. The trend
toward increase in the training load in the health field has continued—
the Foreign Operations Administration group coming from the less
developed countries and the World Health Organization group from
both highly developed and less developed countries. In the FOA
program in both maternal and child health and social welfare, the
grants generally have been for 12 months with 8 or 9 months for
academic training in a school of public health or social work, or for
graduate work in a school of medicine. The WHO fellows, in general,
have been highly qualified persons who have come for a few months
of observation of new developments in their fields.
During the year, training programs have been planned for 69 longterm
trainees and observers and 133 short-term visitors. Of the 69
long-term trainees and observers, 36 were in the health field as follows:
maternal and child health 17, pediatrics 6, obstetrics 3, gynecology and
obstetrics 2, nursing 2, other 6; 25 were in child and youth welfare
as follows: group work 5, child welfare 5, juvenile delinquency 8,
other 7; 8 were in medical social work.
The child health and welfare specialists recruited and back-stopped
by the Bureau are contributing to the programs in six countries. The
Maternal and Child Health Demonstration in Samawa, Iraq, continues
to increase. The Government in Iraq has constructed 3 new buildings
on the grounds to handle the increasing number of patients and
trainees.
In Egypt the major responsibility of the American maternal and
child health physician has been the development of a rural health
demonstration with special emphasis on maternal and child health
at the village of Shubra Mant, near the Pyramids. Health visitors
are being trained for work at the new center.
The medical social consultants, working in El Salvador and Panama,
have turned over to local medical social workers the hospital
social service units which they had initiated. They are now functioning
on a truly consultant basis to the medical social workers in the
several hospitals, to hospital administrators, and to health centers.
They are active also in the field of social work education and have
had teaching responsibilities in connection with the schools of social
work in each country.
66 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
Ill Mexico the American consultant nurse-midwife has been working
with other nurses on nursing curricula at schools in various parts
of the country and has given assistance in the organization of a new
division of nursing in the Mexican Ministry of Health and Welfare.
She and an American physician were loaned to Uruguay for 2 months
when that country had the most severe polio epidemic in its history.
In February the Director of the Division of International Cooperation
attended the tenth Pan American Child Congress in Panama as
a member of the United States delegation. She also attended the
technical conference of Public Health Chiefs of U. S. Operations
Missions for the Near East, South Asia and Africa, and the Far East,
which was held in New Delhi, India, from February 22 through
March 7. She visited the All India School of Hygiene and Public
Health in Calcutta. From there she went to Iran, Pakistan, Iraq,
Lebanon, Egypt, and Libya, as a consultant on maternal and child
health activities of the Foreign Operations Administration program
in these countries.
The Chief of the Bureau serves under Presidential appointment
as United States representative on the Executive Board of the United
Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF). In May 1955,
she was a member of the United States delegation to the World Health
Organization Congress in Mexico City.
Federal Credit Unions
During the fiscal year ended June 30, 1955, the aggregate assets of
all Federal credit unions exceeded $1 billion for the first time. The
program was 21 years old on June 26. On June 30th, there were 7,562
units in operation. Their 3.8 million members owned assets totaling
$1.1 billion, of which $767.7 million consisted of loans outstanding to
members. Federal credit unions were operating in Alaska, Hawaii,
the District of Columbia, the Canal Zone, Puerto Rico, the Virgin
Islands, and in each of the 48 States. About 83 percent were serving
employee groups in commerce, industry, and government—local, State,
and Federal; 15 percent were serving associational groups such as
labor unions, churches, and fraternal organizations; and 2 percent
were serving residents of small rural communities or residents of welldefined
neighborhood groups in urban areas. About two-thirds (67
percent) of those operating on June 30 had assets of less than $100,000,
and more than half (58 percent) were chartered after January 1, 1947.
Between July 1, 1954, and June 30, 1955, the number of operating
Federal credit unions increased 572 or 8.2 percent; membership increased
358,378 or 11.2 percent; total assets increased $203 million or
22 percent; and amount of loans outstanding increased $145 million
Social Security Administration 67
or 23 percent. Outstanding loans to members accounted for 68.4 percent
of total assets at the end of fiscal year 1955 as compared with 67.8
percent at the end of fiscal year 1954.
Each Federal credit union is a separate corporation. Each is managed
and operated by officials elected by and from the group it was
organized to serve. The field of membership of each unit is specifically
defined in its charter, and the Federal Credit Union Act specifies
that it may provide cooperative thrift and small-loan services only
for its members. The Federal Credit Union Act specifies the maximum
size of a loan that may be made to a member ($200 or 10 percent
of the credit union’s paid-in and unimpaired capital and surplus,
whichever is larger) ; the maximum loan maturity (36 months); and
the maximum rate of interest (1 percent per month on the unpaid
balances, inclusive of all charges incidental to making the loan). The
treasurer of a Federal credit union is the only elected official who may
be paid for his services to the credit union. His compensation, if any,
must be authorized by the members. Although each unit is authorized
to borrow from any source up to 50 percent of its paid-in and unimpaired
capital and surplus, borrowing has not been an important source
of capital for most Federal credit unions. Funds used to make loans
to members are the accumulated savings of members in their credit
union. Such savings are called “shares” and are risk capital in the
corporate sense of the term.
Program Operations
The Bureau of Federal Credit Unions grants charters to groups that
voluntarily apply and are determined to be eligible and qualified under
the terms of the Federal Credit Union Act. The Bureau does no promotional
work; information and assistance is furnished only upon receipt
of a bona fide request. Interest in the organization of Federal
credit unions is stimulated by the Credit Union National Association,
a nationwide voluntary organization, through advertising and through
the efforts of its staff of field men. State credit union leagues, which
are voluntary associations of credit unions on the State level, also
actively promote and assist in the organization of new credit unions.
In an increasing number of localities volunteers, usually officials of
operating credit unions, are generating interest in the establishment of
Federal credit unions. Many assist groups to apply for charters and
later follow through with the instruction of the newly elected officials.
In addition, new credit unions are established through the efforts of
persons who learned about these self-help organizations at their previous
places of employment. During the year, the Bureau granted 794
charters to groups that were found after investigation to be eligible
and qualified.
68 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
A complete set of manuals is furnished to each newly chartered
Federal credit union, and, when necessary, instructions and assistance
in conducting the organization meeting are given by one of the Bureau’s
field examiners. In a number of States, Credit Union League
personnel and volunteers are providing personal instructions for the
officials of new credit unions. In fiscal year 1955, less than 1 percent
of the official time of Bureau examiners was devoted to organization
work and to the initial instructions of officers, directors, and
committeemen.
In fiscal year 1955, 6,716 examinations of Federal credit unions
were completed by the Bureau’s staff. This was an increase of 425
over the number completed during fiscal year 1954. A total of 24,812
man-days was devoted to the making of these examinations for an
average of 3.694 days per examination. The average time for the
6,291 examinations completed in fiscal year 1954 was 3.560 days. The
average assets of those Federal credit unions whose examinations were
completed in 1955 were $131,314 as compared with $119,692 for those
completed in 1954. Of the examinations completed in 1955, 66 (or
about 1 percent) were in cases of actual or suspected defalcations.
These 66 examinations accounted for 5.4 percent of the total field examiner’s
time devoted to examinations during the year. The corresponding
ratios for fiscal year 1954 were 1.2 percent and 4.6 percent,
respectively.
At the end of fiscal year 1955, the Bureau had a budgeted staff of
238—24 departmental and 214 field. At the end of the previous year
there were 23 departmental positions and 195 field positions provided
in the budget. Recruiting for field examiner positions during the
year proved to be more difficult than in prior years owing to the
relative shortage in the available supply of trained accountants to
meet the demand for such trained persons by Government agencies,
private industry, and public accounting firms. Toward the end of
the fiscal year the Chief of Field Operations worked out, with the
assistance of the Bureau’s Regional Representative in Chicago and
in New York City, a procedure for direct recruiting of graduating
seniors of colleges and universities. The experience gained and contacts
made are expected to be even more helpful in the future than
they were this year.
Fiscal year 1955 was the second year that the Bureau’s operations
were financed entirely by fees collected from Federal credit unions.
The Federal Credit Union Act specifies four kinds of fees and
provides that the revenue from these fees shall be used to defray the
costs of administering the law. A charter fee of $5 and an investigation
fee of $20 are paid by each group when it makes application for
a charter. For each calendar year after the year in which its charter
is granted each Federal credit union pays a supervision fee the
Social Security Administration 69
amount of which is determined by the amount of its assets as of December
31 in accordance with section 5 of the act. The fourth fee is paid
to the examiner at the conclusion of the examination. It is computed
in accordance with a schedule fixed by the Director in conformance
with the act and regulations published in the Federal Register. The
schedule in effect during fiscal year 1955 was $56 per examiner day
or 50 cents per $100 of the Federal credit union’s assets as of the
effective date of the examination, whichever was lower, with a minimum
fee of $25 per examination, except that no fee was assessed for the
first examination made within 1 year after the charter was issued.
Revenue from these fees totaled $19,850 for chartering, $335,774.21
for supervision, and $1,154,519.95 for examinations during fiscal year
1955, as compared with $21,575, $277,619, and $993,596, respectively,
during fiscal year 1954.
Strengthening the Program
The growth in numbers and size of Federal credit unions is an
important factor in the administration of the Bureau’s program responsibilities.
Solutions to new problems must be developed, trends
must be studied, and probable developments anticipated in order that
the necessary changes in procedures can be ready for installation at
the appropriate time.
Manuals and instructional materials furnished to the officials of
Federal credit unions are revised from time to time to keep them up
to date and pertinent. Advice and suggestions of the operating officials,
of the field examiners, and of the leaders of the organized credit
union movement are solicited. This procedure has fostered good cooperation
with instructions issued by the Bureau and has been of
material assistance in the development of practical aids to credit union
operations. This procedure of proven value is being continued.
An integral part of each examination is the instruction of the Federal
credit union officials. Since these instructions can be and are
geared to prevailing or anticipated conditions in the credit union concerned,
the examination program is a progressive rather than a static
influence on the development of sound credit union service in the
Nation. The knowledge this experience gives the field examiners is
a valuable resource in keeping the Bureau’s policies and regulations
in tune with the times.
The Bureau is continuing efforts to collect and maintain basic statistical
data on Federal credit unions and to encourage research by
graduate students and faculty members of colleges and universities in
this field. The results of these efforts will provide the means for
detecting need for change and for evaluating proposed legislation,
proposed amendments to published regulations, and proposed revisions
of manuals for Federal credit union officials.
70 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
During the fiscal year, after considerable study and analysis, regulations
prescribing minimum standards as to amount and type of
surety-bond coverage for officials and employees of Federal credit
unions were promulgated and published in the Federal Register.
These regulations implemented the amendment to the Federal Credit
Union Act approved during the second session of the Eighty-third
Congress to clarify provisions as to the authority of the Director to
specify minimum surety-bond standards.
Responsibility for the supervision and examination of credit unions
chartered by the District of Columbia was transferred to the Bureau
during fiscal year 1955 by the provisions of Public Law 656, enacted
by the Eighty-third Congress.
OTHER SOURCES OF SOCIAL SECURITY INFORMATION
GENERAL
Social Security Bulletin—the official monthly publication of the
Social Security Administration, available through the Superintendent
of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington 25,
D. C. An annual statistical supplement, with calendar-year data, is
included in each September issue.
Selected Social Security Research Reports—a list of reports of the
Division of Research and Statistics, Office of the Commissioner, including
selected Research and Statistics Notes, available through the
Director of the Division.
Old-Age., Survivors, and Invalidity Programs Throughout the
World, 1955, Division of Research and Statistics, Report No. 19.
Social Workers Abroad Assess Their Training in the United States,
April 1955, International Service Office, Office of the Commissioner.
OLD-AGE AND SURVIVORS INSURANCE
The Minimum Benefit Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance—
A Report on a Study Called for by Public Law 761, 83rd Congress,
1955, available through the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors
Insurance.
Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund: Fifteenth
Annual Report. U. S. Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and
Survivors Insurance Trust Fund. (S. Doc. 39, 84th Cong., 1st sess.)
Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1955.
Actuarial Studies, Division of the Actuary, Office of the Commissioner:
Long-Range Cost Estimates for Old-Age and Survivors Insurance,
1955 (No. 39) ; The Financial Principle of Self-Support in the
Old-Age and Survivors Insurance System (No. 40); Analysis of Benefits,
OASI Program, 1955 Amendments (No. 41); Present Values of
OASI Benefits in Current Payment Status, 1950-55 (No. 42); EstiSocial
Security Administration 71
mated Amount of Life Insurance in Force as Survivor Benefits Under
OASI—1955 (No. 43).
PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
Administrative Costs of Public Assistance, Variations Among
States, 195V Public Assistance Report No. 25.
State Methods for Establishing Workload and Staffing Standards.
How They Do It Series, June 1955.
Kit on the Development of Manuals and Written Instructions for
Use in State Public Assistance Agencies, Part I, July 1955.
Recipients of Old-Age Assistance in Early 1953, Part I, State Data.
Public Assistance Report No. 26, June 1955.
Aid to Dependent Children: Continuing Effect of the Requirement
That Law-Enforcement Officials Be Notified of the Furnishing of Aid
in Cases Involving Desertion or Abandonment, July 1952-December
1953. June 1955.
Staff Participation in the Evaluation of a Policy on Case Recording.
Current Practices in Staff Training, No. IX, June 1955.
CHILD HEALTH AND CHILD WELFARE
For current reports, see the Children’s Bureau section of this Annual
Report.
Table 1.—Social Security Administration: Funds available and obligations incurred,
fiscal years 1955 and 1954 1
[In thousands; data as of June 30,1955]
Item
Funds available1 2 Obligations incurred
1955 1954 1955 1954
Total____________________________________________ $1, 552,994 $1,496, 414 $1, 538, 748 $1,483,196
Grants to States_______________________________________ 1,467,000 1,428,000 1,453,199 1,415,420
Public assistance__________________________________
Old-age assistance___________ _______ _________
1,437,000 1,398,000 1,423,943
f 920,791
1,386,931
931, 711
Aid to the blind_______________________________
Aid to dependent children_____________________
Aid to the nermanently and totally disabled...
| 1,437,000
1,398,000 I 36,467
j 385,233
[ 81,452
35, 561
347,236
72,423
Maternal and child health and welfare services____ 30,000 30,000 29, 256 28,489
Maternal and child health services_____________ 11,928 11,928 11, 919 11, 787
Services for crippled children. _ _______________ 10,843 10,843 10,614 10,601
Child welfare services___ __________ . _ ___ 7,229 7,229 6,723 6,101
Administrative expenses3_____________________________ 85, 994 68,414 85, 549 67, 776
Office of the Commissioner4. ... _ _ ... ________ 309 298 304 286
Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance 5 *_____ 81,020 63,746 80,688 63,188
Bureau of Public Assistance_____ ... ... _______ 1,501 1,551 1,487 i 1, 529
Children’s Bureau8____________ ___________________ 1,629 1,525 1,617 1,521
Bureau of Federal Credit Unions__________________ 1,535 1,294 1,453 1,252
1 Funds available and obligations reported by administrative agencies.
2 Funds made available by regular and supplemental appropriations, authorizations, transfers, allotments,
recoveries, and fee collections for services rendered.
3 Funds made available and obligations incurred for salaries, printing and binding, communications,
traveling expenses, and reimbursement items for services rendered to other Government agencies.
4 Appropriations by Congress from general revenues accounted for approximately 57 percent of the administrative
expenses of the Office of the Commissioner in 1954 and 1955; balance from old-age and survivors
insurance trust fund.
5 For administration of the old-age and survivors insurance program, which involved benefit payments
of $3,275,000,000 in 1954 and $4,333,000,000 in 1955.
8 Includes expenses for investigating and reporting on matters pertaining to the welfare of children authorized
by the act of 1912, as well as expenses for administration of grants to States.
72 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
Table 2.—Financing social insurance under the Social Security Act: Contributions
collected and trust fund operations, fiscal years 1953—55
[In millions]
Item 1955 1954 1953
Contributions collected under—
Federal Insurance Contributions Act1_________________________ $5,087 $4, 589 $4,097
Federal Unemployment Tax Act2_____________________________ 279 285 277
State unemployment insurance laws 34________________________ 1,142 1,246 1,368
Old-age and survivors insurance trust fund:
Receipts, total_________________________________________________ 5, 534 5,040 4,483
Transfers and appropriations 1--------------------------------------------- 5,087 4,589 4,097
Interest and profits on investments 5_______________________ 448 450 387
Expenditures, total___________ _______________________________ 4, 436 3,365 2, 717
Monthly benefits and lump-sum payments6_______________ 4, 333 3,276 2,627
Administration____________________________________________ 103 89 89
Assets, end of year_____________________________________________ 21,141 20,043 18,366
State accounts in the unemployment trust fund:
Receipts, total_________________________________________________ 1,333 1,454 1,560
Deposits4__________________________________________________ 1,146
187
1,246 1,371
Interest________ __________________________________________ 208 189
Withdrawal for benefit payments_______________________________ 1, 760 1,605 908
Assets, end of year_____________________________________________ 7,983 8,409 8,559
1 Contributions on earnings up to and including $3,600 a year in 1953 and 1954 and $4,200 a year beginning
Jan. 1, 1955. Contribution rate paid by employers and employees: 1^ percent each in 1953 and 2 percent
each beginning Jan. 1, 1954. Contribution rate paid by self-employed: 2J4 percent in 1953 and 3 percent
beginning Jan. 1, 1954. Includes deposits by States under voluntary agreements for coverage of State and
local employees. Includes deductions to adjust for reimbursement to the General Treasury of the estimated
amount of taxes subject to refund on wages in excess of wage base.
s Tax paid only by employers of 8 or more. Employers offset against this tax—up to 90 percent of the
amount assessed—contributions which they have paid under State unemployment insurance laws or full
amount they would have paid if they had not been allowed reduced contribution rates under State experience-
rating provisions. Rate is 3 percent of first $3,000 a year of wages paid to each employee by subject
employer; because of credit offset, effective rate is 0.3 percent of such wages.
s Contributions plus penalties and interest collected from employers and contributions from employees,
reported by State agencies.
* Contributions and deposits by States usually differ slightly, primarily because of time lag in making
deposits.
5 For 1954 and 1955, includes interest transferred from the railroad retirement account under the financial
interchange provision of the Railroad Retirement Act, as amended in 1951.
6 Represents checks issued.
Source: Compiled from Monthly Statement of the U. S. Treasury, other Treasury reports, and State agency
reports.
Social Security Administration 73
[In thousands, except for average benefit; data corrected to Nov. 25, 1955] )
Table 3.—Old-age and survivors insurance: Estimated number of families and
beneficiaries in receipt of benefits and average monthly benefit in currentpayment
status, by family group, end of June 1955 and 1954
Family classification of beneficiaries
June 30, 1955 June 30, 1954
Number
of
families
Number
of beneficiaries
Average
monthly
amount
per
family
Number
of
families
Number
of beneficiaries
Average
monthly
amount
per
family
Total- __ __________________ 5, 542.3 7, 563. 5 4, 690. 2 6, 468.8
Retired worker families. ... ___________ _____ 4, 214. 8 5, 462.3 3, 519. 4 4, 577.6
Worker only___________________ __________ 3,067.4 3, 067. 4 $58. 20 2, 545.4 2, 545 4 $49 40
Male_______ ____ ___________ _ _____ h 962.0 1, 962. 0 63. 70 1, 669. 9 1 669. 9 53 80
Female_______ _______________ ____ 1,105.4 1, 105.4 48. 60 875. 5 875 5 41 10
Worker and wife aged 65 or over__________ 1, 066. 6 2,133. 2 102. 20 904 9 1 809 8 86 30
Worker and wife under age 65 1 . .4 . 8 105. 00 . 6 1.2 95 60
Worker and aged dependent husband-.___ 9.2 18. 4 86 50 7 3 14 6 75 20
Worker and 1 child-. ..._____ . .-. 10. 0 20.0 98 70 9 2 18 4 76 00
Worker and 2 or more children. _ ... 6.1 22.2 102. 20 5.8 20.4 79.40
Worker, wife aged 65 or over, and 1 or more
children____________ __ ___ 1. 0 3 0 123 30 8 2 6 98 90
Worker, wife under age 65, and 1 child_______ 34.5 103.5 119.20 28. 5 85.5 100. 70
Worker, wife under age 65, and 2 or more
children_______________________ 19. 6 93.8 112.90 16 9 79 7 93. 40
Survivor families_____________________________ 1, 327. 5 2,101. 2 1,170.8 1, 891. 2
Aged widow.___ _ .. _________________ 688. 2 688. 2 46 60 585 1 585 1 41 00
Aged dependent widower_____ .. . 1. 2 1.2 40 70 9 9 34 40
Widowed mother only >___ ......___ 1. 5 1. 5 48.10 2 0 2 0 45 20
Widowed mother and 1 child.._ ... _______ 120.9 241.8 104. 90 118 5 237 0 91 50
Widowed mother and 2 children___________ 84. 5 253. 5 132.30 78. 5 235 5 114 50
Widowed mother and 3 or more children___ 74.5 349.5 129. 20 68.8 322.6 111.80
Divorced wife and 1 or more children _______ .2 .4 124.00 . 2 6 111 50
1 child only_____________ ____________ __ 202. 3 202. 3 47 90 175 5 175 5 42 20
2 children____________________ ._ ________ 80.8 161. 6 81. 60 73 5 147 0 72 20
3 children___________ _. _________ ._ 29. 5 88. 5 100 20 25 9 77 7 88 30
4 or more children_________________ _______ 19.9 87. 2 104 80 19 1 83 0 92 60
1 aged dependent parent___________________ 22.3 22. 3 48 00 21 2 21 2 42 60
2 aged dependent parents__________________ 1.7 3.4 92.60 1.6 3.2 81.40
1 Benefits of children were being withheld.
368636—56------6
74 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
Table 4.—Old-age and survivors insurance: Number and amount of monthly
benefits in current-payment status at end of fiscal year 1955, and amount of
benefits paid in fiscal year 1955, by State
[In thousands, distribution by State estimated; corrected to Nov. 15, 1955]
i Less than $500.
Beneficiary’s State of residence
Monthly benefits in
cur rent-payment
status, end of fiscal
year 1955
Benefit payments, fiscal year 1955
Number Amount Total
Monthly 1
benefits
Lump-sum
payments
Total_______________________________ 7, 563. 5 $384,025 $4,333,148 $4, 232, 609 $100, 539
Alabama ______________ -___ _______ 109.7 4,464 50,705 49, 487 1,218
Alaska ________________ __ __________ 3.8 172 '2,085 2,022 63
Arizona - - - -------------- - - 33.9 1,630 18,346 17, 929 417
Arkansas _______________________________ 66.4 2,689 30,235 29, 551 684
California ____________________ ________ 616.4 32,181 362, 502 354, 303 8,199
Colorado _____________________________ 62.2 3,035 34,183 33,424 759
Connecticut_____________________________ 129.4 7, 424 83,422 81,488 1,934
Delaware _________________ _ _ _ 17.4 908 10, 290 10,007 283
District of Columbia ____ ______ ______ 28.5 1,428 16, 229 15,749 480
Florida._________________________________ 196.8 9, 991 110, 775 108, 778 1,997
Georgia __ ____________ --_____ ______ 112.2 4,549 51,906 50, 350 1, 556
Hawaii - _________________________ -___ 16.9 772 8,886 8, 760 126
Idaho -_______ ____- 25.1 1,162 12, 994 12,765 229
Illinois __ ________ __________________ 456.5 24,665 278, 588 271,483 7,105
Indiana - -________________________ 218.5 11,043 124,193 121,454 2,739
Iowa -- -- ---------------- - -- 114.0 5, 460 61,022 59, 745 1,277
Kansas - ___________________ _______ 83.4 3,938 44,199 43,177 1,022
Kentucky________________ - - - ----- 119.9 5,231 59, 223 57,812 1,411
Louisiana _ --------------- 86.6 3,687 42,118 40,931 1,187
Maine _________________ ___________ 63.8 3,072 34,727 34,019 708
Maryland - - __________ ____- _______ 104.8 5,290 60,077 58,365 1,712
Massachusetts____________ __ ___ 321.9 17, 670 199,730 195,607 4,123
Michigan _______________ _______ -- -- 328.2 18,035 203,390 198,608 4,782
Minnesota______ __________________ _____ 134.9 6, 792 76,173 74, 538 1,635
Mississippi - ------------ - __ 54.9 2,080 23, 450 22,880 570
Missouri ________________ ________ 192.8 9,535 107,437 104,819 2,618
Montana - - ______________ _________ 26.8 1,304 14,636 14,327 309
Nebraska - __ _______________ _______ 52.2 2,464 27,456 26,906 550
Nevada _ . __ __________________________ 7.7 392 4,442 4, 298 144
New Hampshire__________________________ 39.2 1,980 22,359 21,921 438
New Jersey___________________ _________ 290.9 16,319 184,118 179, 742 4,376
New Mexico ___________________________ 19.8 804 9,089 8,854 235
New York _ - - -------------- 850.5 46,176 521, 563 508,868 12,695
North Carolina _______________ ______ 125.6 5,142 58,440 56,944 1,496
North Dakota____________________ ___ 14.7 639 7,165 6,992 173
Ohio _____ _____ 449.3 24,100 272,105 265, 744 6,361
Oklahoma______________________ ___ 82.4 3,686 41, 586 40,604 982
Oregon ___ ____________ - ____ - 96.6 4,987 55,938 54,882 1,056
Pennsylvania _ _ _ _____________ _____ 617.3 33, 313 376, 669 368,058 8, 611
Puerto Rico ____________ ______- - - 24.5 724 7,478 7,346 132
Rhode Island . __________ _________ 54.6 2,960 33,459 32, 718 741
South Carolina _ ___ _____ __ 64.7 2,541 29,107 28, 249 858
South Dakota __ _____________________ 20.3 919 10, 244 10,009 235
Tennessee___ ____________________________ 111.5 4, 659 52, 770 51, 517 1,253
Texas - --------------__ ____ 253.5 11, 202 126,731 123, 310 3, 421
Utah _______________________ 28.3 1,369 15,416 15,080 336
Vermont _____ - __ -- __________ 22.1 1,074 12,024 11,827 197
Virgin Islands____ -- - --____ - - -- .3 11 106 106 (>)
Virginia - ___________________ 125.5 5,588 63,411 61, 685 1,726
Washington _____________ ____ __ 142.9 7,503 84, 540 82,925 1,615
West Virginia _ ________ _______________ 104.6 4,909 55, 747 54, 719 1,028
Wisconsin ...._______ ______ ______ 183.9 9,589 107,311 104,965 2,346
Wyoming____________________________ _____ 10.4 511 5, 728 5,600 128
Foreign--------------- -------------------------------------- 44.5 2,257 26,625 26, 362 263
Social Security Administration 75
Table 5.—Old-age and survivors insurance: Selected data on benefits, employers,
workers, and taxable earnings for specified periods, 1953—55
[In thousands except for average monthly benefit and average taxable earnings; corrected to Nov. 15, 1955]
Item 1955 1954 1953
Fiscal year
Benefits in current-payment status (end of period):
Number_______ ___ _______________ _ __ 7, 563. 5
4,214. 8
1,131.3
1, 220. 9
6, 468. 8
3, 519.4
959.1
5, 573. 6
2, 977. 5
826.6
1, 003.3
499.0
Old-age__________________ ____ ______ _______________
Wife’s or husband’s. ______________ __ _____ ______
Child’s__________________________________________________ 1,111.9
Widow’s or widower’s. ___________________ ________ ' 689. 8 586.3
Mother’s__ ________________ ____ _ . . ____ 281. 2 267. 7 244.8
Parent’s_______________________________________________ . 25. 6 24.4 22. 5
Total monthly amount _______________ ________________ $384,025
257, 230
37, 011
43, 730
32,150
12, 677
1,226
$278, 702
182,334
26,302
34, 770
24,016
10, 249
1,030
$232,999
150,124
22,050
30, 541
20,332
9,015
936
Old-age ________________________________________ ___
Wife’s or husband’s_____________________________ ____ ___
Child’s__________________________________________ ____ _
Widow’s or widower’s____________________________________
Mother’s_________________________________ __________
Parent’s __ _________________________________________ _
Average monthly amount:
Old-age____ ___________________ ____ __________ _______ $61.03
32.72
$51.81
27.42
$50. 42
Wife’s or husband’s__________ ___________________________ 26. 68
Child’s___________________________________ 35.82 31.27 30. 44
Widow’s or widower’s_____________________________ ____ 46. 61 40. 96 40. 75
Mother’s___________________ ____ ... 45.08 38. 28 36.82
Parent’s______________ . . _____________ 47.86 42.26 41. 68
Benefit payments during period:
Monthly benefits____________ ______________ . . .. $4, 232, 609
2,802,967
428,847
1,000, 795
100, 539
$3,185,282
2,068,404
318, 614
798,264
90,175
$2, 551,224
1, 624, 605
252 994
Old-age_____________ ________________ ... ________ ___
Supplementary________________________________
Survivor____ .’_______ ______________________________ .... 673, 625
Lump-sum payments______________________ ______________ 76,268
Estimated number of living workers with wage credits (midpoint
of period—Jan. 1):1
Total__________________ ______ __________ _______ . ._ 95,200
69,800
600
93, 600 91,000
67, 700
(1 2)
Fully insured________ _ ______ . _____________________ 70,800
Currently but not fully insured. ____________ ___________ (2)
Uninsured_______________________________________ 24, 800 22,800 23,300
Estimated number of employers reporting taxable wages, 1st
quarter of fiscal year_________________________ ___ 3, 700 3, 650 3,663
Calendar year
Estimated number of workers with taxable earnings____ _____ (<) 60,000
$134,000, 000
$2, 230
61. 000
Estimated amount of taxable earnings_______________________ (4) $136,000; 000
Average taxable earnings3. _______ ______ ___________ ____ (4) $2, 230
1 Estimates of insured workers have not been adjusted to reflect changes in insurance status arising from:
(1) provisions that coordinate the old-age and survivors insurance and railroad retirement programs and
(2) wage credits for military service. Estimates are only partially adjusted to eliminate duplicate count of
persons with taxable earnings reported on more than 1 account number. The effect of such duplication is
substantially less significant for insured workers than for uninsured workers.
2 All persons currently insured on these dates are also fully insured.
3 Rounded to nearest $10.
< Not available.
76 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
Table 6.—Special types o f public assistance under plans approved by the Social Security Administration: Number o f recipients
and average payment, June 1955, and total payments to recipients, by program and State, fiscal year 1955
[Includes vendor paym ents for medical care an d cases receiving only such paym ents]
[Corrected to N ov. 15, 1955]
Aid to th e perm anently and
to tally disabled
T otal,
fiscal year
(in th o u sands)
PS
g ! ¥
co : '.w
Sg-SS
COC)
'3s S82
-F <6- : lef ;«T nWUAverage
paym ent,
June
BBS
g—
35.85
31.08
322S I 5538 1 !3 ,;5£ 558
55S8 ! 2855 : ':§ :S8 SgS
N um ber
of
ients,
Ju n e
10,148
4,913
53S8 I S355 ! IS ISS 888
5.8.2.
t—i 04 i Ci C© । ICO । 04 -^0 04
Aid to th e blind
P aym en ts to
recipients
T otal,
fiscal year
(in th o u sands)
ggg
gw
§“§§33522“ §-“§53832“ “35
of r-r w cirtrt ww -in
Average
paym ent,
June
835 383525335S £§388532.23 355
5885S88S88 5S38888588 588
N um ber
of
ients,
Ju n e
r-T cscf of co coi-hw of of t-Tw
A id to dependent children
P aym en ts to recipients
T otal,
fiscal year
(in th o u sands)
__________
$562,026
561,100
620,545
g§§2§“23l8 §“§§§§£§23 33“
coN^o^edco cjcd^ocd^coco^
Average
p aym en t
per recipient,
Ju n e
1__________
gsis
5382S82388 5388582835 £§£
2335538332 3585353223 333
iiil SSK £888583335 2gS£5S882£ 322
83S83B385S £333322885 333
N um b er of recipients, Ju n e
___________________________
C hildren
§“3335S““£ 8§“S£833“§ 5S§
S“S318—1 22”“8 82-3322882 333
T o ta l1
U-efef
W§83S3£§ 35£8§58S85 §83
£-28§32-“£ S2“33328£2 358
F am ilies
388
s¥§
§““3S5§222 “53“££§§5§ £§S
WHVooeioVrtN-4 TfcoWg-odo-^-cgog^ ocog
Old-age assistance
P aym en ts to
recipients
T otal,
fiscal year
(in th o u sands)
$1,581,052
1, 589, 618
|1, 589, 802
5£38§§2282 S8£§“§28§5
3-^5552 -§ 8-^853332- «S8
। Average
paym ent,
Ju n e
§83 5S52825S85 5S83588353 352
8888888388 £855858888 828
N um b er
of recipients,
Ju n e§
83
§“¥
ef ci" cd
8g£3§8§S5S “§£5£22^§ §28
£-“53S2-“3 §-“8885832 235
X>
os
bo
N um -
&
£
CO
.2
77
<
.ca
A m ount
co
c
CT
OC
103,081
498,684
396,395
1,188,132
1 Num-1
o&
cc
31
159
CO i
1
CM
'-r
co

I co
•i c0o0
1 co
4,688,950
T rain
N um -
oc
1 1 1
•Olli
1Q I I I
I I I
11 CcOo 1 CM
CCDT CM
in? grants
A m ount
$2,196,261
2,361,834
567,848
5,125,943
o
rt
N u m -,
&
1 1 1
i CO 1 i
1 1 1
109
52
cr> CM
cao
•t-time
A m ount
1 1 1
’ ' o !
I 100*1
i i CO i1
0,368
123,984
162, 432
3
School enrollments in the continental United States, 1953—54 and 1954—55 1
Elementary schools (including kindergartens) :
Public_____________________________________
1954—55
24, 091, 500
1953—54
22, 801, 400
Private and parochial_______________________ 3, 506, 200 3,325,400
Residential schools for exceptional children2_____
Model and practice schools in teacher-training
65,000 65,000
institutions 38, 300
27, 400
37, 900
Federal schools for Indians___________________ 27, 500
Federal schools under Public Law 874---------------- 9, 600 7, 800
Total elementary______________________
Secondary schools:
27, 738, 000 26, 265, 000
Public_____________________________________ 6, 582, 300 6, 388, 000
Private and parochial________________________ 774, 800 751, 200
Residential schools for exceptional children2_____
Model and practice schools in teacher-training insti-
11,100 11,100
tutions and preparatory departments of colleges— 40,500 40, 000
Federal schools for Indians___________________ 12, 300 11, 800
Federal schools under Public Law 874---------------- 1,000 900
Total secondary_______________________
Higher education:
Universities, colleges, professional schools, includ-
7, 422, 000 7, 203, 000
ing junior colleges and normal schools-------------
Other schools:
2, 740, 000 2, 444, 000
Private commercial schools---- ,---------------------
Nurse training schools (not affiliated with colleges
144, 000 131, 000
and universities)--------------------------------------- 69,500 71,900
Total other schools-------------------------------- 213, 500 202, 900
Grand total----------------------------------------------- 38,113, 500 36,114, 900
1 Office of Education estimates.
2 In addition to those provided for in day schools.
Office of Education 147
Approximately 60,000 public elementary and secondary classrooms
and related facilities were constructed in the United States during
the 1954-55 school year. It is estimated that the capital outlay
investment for these facilities was in excess of $2 billion. In spite of
this all-time high in school construction, the country still faces a large
school building program because of increasing enrollments, population
mobility, school district reorganization, and wide demands for an
extended and enriched program of education and community services.
The nationwide School Facilities Survey conducted by the Office of
Education revealed that States have projected their plans for meeting
school plant needs to the extent of 476,000 classrooms during a period
of five school years (1954-55 to 1958-59, inclusive), at an estimated
aggregate capital outlay cost of more than $16 billion, exclusive of
planned rehabilitation.
The primary source of school construction funds has been school
district bonds supported by local property taxes. There are trends,
however, toward school district reorganization and State aid for capital
outlay which will broaden the fiscal base and improve methods of
financing school construction.
Planning school plants is becoming more and more a cooperative
procedure. School architects, administrators, supervisors, teachers,
pupils, furniture manufacturers, and lay citizens cooperate in planning
school facilities. School buildings and equipment are thus becoming
more functional and better adapted to educational requirements.
Specialists in curriculum, school buildings, and furniture and equipment,
in Federal and State governments and in colleges and universities,
are assisting local school officials and architects in the initial
planning for the space required for different courses and learning
activities, the equipment needed for effective instruction, proper lighting
for a variety of seeing tasks, and suitable heating, ventilating,
sanitation, and sound control. Final decisions on these matters, however,
are made by local school officials, subject to State regulations.
School programs today include a variety of learning situations
which entail many activities and instructional materials. Such programs
demand classrooms designed for multiple purposes. The trend
in elementary school planning is toward a self-contained classroom of
900 or more square feet with work counter, sink, toilet, storage compartments,
chalk and tack boards, display cases, and movable furniture
and equipment. Such rooms are readily adapted to accommodate a
variety of activities. Secondary school plants are usually designed
with special classrooms for science, art, music, homemaking, business
education, crafts, and various types of vocational and prevocational
shops. The trend in secondary school planning, however, is toward
148 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
some multi-use classrooms which will serve more than one specialized
subject area.
The shortage of teachers continued during 1954-55, and elementary
and secondary schools will need a total of 229,700 new teachers when
the schools open this fall. These teachers will be required (1) to
replace 91,200 emergency teachers; (2) to replace 83,300 qualified
teachers who will leave the profession; and (3) to provide the 55,200
teachers needed for the increase in enrollment. It is estimated that
25,000 of the emergency teachers will become qualified by the time
school opens. In addition, 95,186 teachers completed certification requirements
in 1955, but only 63,400 of these are expected to accept
teaching positions. With only 88,400 new qualified teachers entering
the profession, there will be a deficit of 141,300 teachers when schools
open in the fall. The 141,300 shortage will have to be made up by
more emergency teachers, by teachers returning to the profession who
did not teach during the last year, and by more overcrowding. The
figures given above do not include any teachers to reduce present
overcrowding nor to enrich the curriculum.
The annual estimates submitted to the National Education Association
by the State departments of education showed an average annual
salary per member of instructional staff in 1954—55 of $3,932.
The average elementary school classroom teacher’s salary was $3,615;
among secondary school teachers the average was $4,194.
Supply and demand for elementary and secondary public and nonpublic school
teachers, 1955—56
r Elementary
Item and Supply: secondary
Total teachers, 1954-551--------------------------------------------------- 1, 201, 800
Less emergency teachers, 1954-55_________________________ 91,200
Total qualified teachers, 1954-55_________________________ 1,110,600
Less 7.5 percent turnover------------------------------------------------ 83, 300
Qualified teachers returning for 1955-56----------------------------- 1, 027, 300
Emergency teachers qualifying for 1955-56-------------------------- 25, 000
New supply of qualified teachers (79 percent of elementary and
56 percent of high school teachers trained in 1954-55)_______ 63,400
Total qualified supply, 1955-56_______________________1,115, 700
Demand:
Total teachers, 1954-55__________________________________ 1, 201, 800
Teachers needed to meet increase in enrollment in 1955-561----- 55, 200
Total demand, 1955-56____________________________ 1,257, 000
Shortage of qualified supply______________________________ 141,300
1 See footnote 1. on following page.
Source : Office of Education Circular No. 417, Revised, and estimates for 1955-56;
and The 1955 Teacher Supply and Demand Report of the National Education Association.
Office of Education 149
JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
During fiscal 1955 the staff of the Office of Education gave considerable
attention to the reorganization of secondary education and
problems associated with the junior high school. Studies indicate
that the reorganization of schools to include some form of junior high
school has gone forward rapidly in recent years, especially since 1946.
The number of seventh- and eighth-grade pupils enrolled in the
secondary schools rose almost continuously from 142,000 in 1920 to
1,993,000 in 1952. During the same period, enrollments in these
grades in the 8-4 schools fell from 2,778,000 to 2,025,000. This drop
is due chiefly to the shifting of these grades to the new junior high
school forms of organization.
In 1920 there were less than 5 percent of the seventh- and eighthgrade
pupils in the reorganized schools; by 1952 this proportion had
risen to almost half (49.6 percent) of the total. The rapid increase in
total secondary school enrollments coupled with the reorganization of
secondary schools has necessitated the construction of many new
school facilities.
These developments have caused some educators to raise questions
concerning the junior high school as a unit in secondary education.
Has the junior high school been set up because of expedient administrative
and building considerations, or is it the best organization
to provide general education for early adolescents 12-15 years of age?
Does it clearly demonstrate superiority over the traditional 8-4 plan?
Have its purposes changed so much since its origin in 1909 as to
suggest that the junior high school needs a new redirection? These
questions have stimulated a surgence of professional interest in the
junior high school.
Because of the wide and growing interest in the junior high school,
the critical demands for more buildings for youth of this age group,
and the unavailability of recent data the office staff sponsored a
National Conference on Junior High Schools. An analysis was also
made of State department of education policies and regulations affecting
the junior high school. As a result of these activities several
national professional organizations and State departments of education
are now making studies of this important segment of secondary
education.
1 The number of elementary and secondary school teachers in public schools, in the fall
of 1954, was 1,065,803 (Office of Education Circular No. 417 Revised). To this must be
added the number in nonpublic schools (private and parochial), in model and practice
schools of colleges and universities, in residential schools for exceptional children, and
in schools operated under Federal auspices. The number of teachers in this group of
schools was estimated as 136,000, on the basis of 1 teacher to every 33 pupils—the ratio
prevailing in the Roman Catholic schools which enroll 88 percent of the pupils in this
group.
150 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
EDUCATIONAL TV
At the beginning of fiscal 1955, there were 7 non-commercial educational
television stations in operation. During the year, 1 of the 7
suspended operation pending reorganization, and 9 new stations went
on the air, bringing the total of the educational television stations
to 15. At the close of fiscal 1955, 11 additional stations were actually
under construction, 16 more had already received their construction
permits from the Federal Communications Commission, and applications
for 13 more had been filed.
A look at the 15 educational TV stations in operation at the end
of fiscal 1955 reveals 5 distinct types of licenses. Six of the 15 are
owned and operated by State universities. Four stations are owned
and operated by non-profit educational television corporations formed
specifically to serve educational and cultural needs of all elements of
the population of the local metropolitan areas. Three of the stations
are owned and operated by State educational broadcast councils
financed from State appropriations. One station, KUHT of Houston,
is owned and operated by a city university, the University of Houston.
One station, WGBH-TV of Boston, is owned and operated by the
Lowell Foundation, an endowed foundation serving educational and
cultural needs of the Boston metropolitan area.
On the whole, educational television station development, already
involving an expenditure of more than $10 million for equipment
alone, is showing a decidedly healthy growth. Now that educational
station planners no longer feel themselves under compulsion to get
their stations on the air immediately, lest locally reserved educational
television channels be re-assigned for commercial use, more attention is
being given to planning educational program services, and to developing
sound bases for financing station operating and programing costs.
In fact, the trend today seems to be to select and train the production
staff first, starting actual production over closed circuit facilities on
an experimental basis while funds for station construction and operation
are being raised.
The growth of educational television development seems in no way
to have dimmed the interest of schools and colleges in radio broadcasting.
In the year just ended, some 30 new educational FM stations
have gone on the air, bringing the total of non-commercial
educational radio stations in operation to 160.
EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN
During the year, the Office of Education continued to give leadership
to the nationwide study on the Qualification and Preparation of
Teachers of Exceptional Children. A study was made of the distinctive
competencies needed by teachers of the blind, crippled, deaf,
gifted, hard-of-hearing, mentally retarded, partially seeing, special
Office of Education 151
health cases, socially maladjusted, and speech-handicapped. Included
also was an evaluation of the competencies needed by special
education personnel in colleges and universities, and in administrative
positions in State and local school systems.
Four publications have now come from the study and others are
nearing completion. The results of the study were presented at various
National, State, and regional meetings throughout the year. It
is anticipated that the findings will form the basis for improved
programs for exceptional children through the development of better
in-service and pre-service preparation of teachers.
CIVIL DEFENSE EDUCATION
A delegation of authority by the Federal Civil Defense Administration
to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare gave
the Office of Education the responsibility for planning, developing,
and distributing materials which will assist schools in teaching civil
defense skills, knowledge, and fundamentals of behavior during emergencies.
Contractual agreements were made with State departments
of education in Connecticut, Michigan, and California to establish
pilot centers for the development of civil defense instruction materials
for teachers in various subject areas and at all levels. The Office of
Education aided the State pilot center staffs by reviewing and evaluating
technical reports developed by the Federal Civil Defense Administration
and other government and non-government agencies.
ASSISTANCE TO SCHOOLS IN FEDERALLY AFFECTED AREAS1
A major activity of the Office during the 1955 fiscal year was administration
of the grant programs authorized for those school districts
which have experienced a severe financial burden as a result of activities
of the United States. The fiscal year 1955 was the fifth year these
programs, authorized by Public Laws 815 and 874 of the 81st Congress,
had been in operation. Public Law 815 authorizes financial assistance
for construction of school facilities needed to house increased school
enrollments resulting from new or expanded Federal activities, mostly
military installations. Public Law 874, the companion law, provides
Federal assistance for current operating expenses each year to take
the place of local revenues lost primarily because of the nontaxable
status of federally owned land on which the school children live or
on which their parents work.
Passage of these two Acts in September 1950 marked the first attempt
by the Congress to establish a uniform policy governing the allocation
of financial assistance to school districts seriously affected by Federal
1 For a more detailed discussion of the operations of this program under Public Laws 815
and 974 (81st Cong.), as amended, see Fifth Annual Report of the Commissioner of education
concerning the administration of Public Laws 874 and 815.
152 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
activities and to place the administration of this program in one administrative
agency. The Laws also attempted to establish an objective
method of determining the extent of the Federal financial burden
and the amount of Federal assistance to which each district was entitled.
Accordingly, each Act established specific requirements for
eligibility, defined the categories of Federal impact for which payment
would be made, and included a formula for determining the amount
of assistance. In addition to grants to local educational agencies Public
Law 815 recognized the necessity for and authorized the construction
of temporary schools in certain situations and the Federal construction
of schools on Federal bases where necessary in order best to
serve the children. Public Law 874 recognized the necessity for and
authorized the Commissioner of Education to arrange for providingfree
public education for children living on Federal enclaves when
no State or local educational agency was responsible for or was able
to provide suitable education for such children.
The original Public Law 815 provided Federal assistance for increases
in school enrollment which resulted from Federal activities
which occurred from the beginning of World War II in 1939 to June
30, 1952. This program was extended in August 1953 by the passage
of Public Law 246 to provide for increases in school enrollment occurring
from June 30,1952, to June 30,1954. Early in the 1955 fiscal year,
Congress again extended this program by the passage of Public Law
731 to provide for school enrollment increases occurring during the
period June 30, 1954, to June 30, 1956. An appropriation of $70 million
was made early in the 1955 fiscal year for allocation to projects
filed by June 30, 1954, and for completion of that program. In April
1955 Congress made available an additional $70 million for the first
year of the newly authorized program. Thus, a major activity of the
Office during the year has been the analysis of applications submitted
for the new 2-year period, an allocation of funds to approved projects,
and the completion or moving toward completion of projects already
approved from prior years’ appropriations.
By June 30, 1955, a total of $585,000,000 had been appropriated for
construction of school facilities in federally affected school districts.
In addition, an estimated $230,000,000 had been added to the projects
from local funds. These funds were used or will be used to help build
2,700 school buildings in local districts and 134 federally constructed
projects located on 83 Federal installations. It is estimated that this
program will have helped provide approximately 25,000 classrooms
and related school facilities which will be sufficient to house an estimated
750,000 children.
During the fiscal year, 2,831 school districts applied for assistance
under Public Law 874 for maintenance and operation of school plants.
Of these, 2,700 were determined to be eligible for approximately $75
Office of Education 153
million. In addition there were 31 federally operated on-base projects
under the provision of section 6 of the Act. The eligible school
districts had an average daily attendance of 910,000 federally connected
children on which payments were authorized and an estimated
total attendance of over 5,500,000 pupils.
While Federal activities, particularly those connected with defense
contracts, have stabilized throughout the country there continues to be
a number of new Federal impact areas resulting primarily from new
or expanded Air Force installations, reclamation project activities, and
atomic energy projects. Continued construction of housing for military
personnel on or near military installations also increases school
enrollment in the Federal impact areas. Thus there was an increase
of 177 eligible school districts in the 1955 fiscal year over 1954 and
an increase of about 3 percent in the cost per pupil resulting in an
increase of approximately $10 million in the cost of the program.
Another major activity occupying the Division during the year was
securing compliance with the January 1954 order of the Secretary of
Defense that no school located on military installations could be operated
on a segregated basis after the fall of 1955. There were 24
schools located on Federal property operated by local educational
agencies on a segregated basis during the 1954-55 school year. Compliance
with the order of the Secretary of Defense required ascertaining
whether local educational agencies operating on-base schools
could in the 1955-56 school year operate those schools on an integrated
basis or whether Federal operation under section 6 of the Act would
be necessary and, if so, preparing the necessary budgets and arranging
for such operation.
Of the 24 schools located on Federal property 20 were federally
owned schools located on military installations and operated by local
educational agencies on a segregated basis during the 1955 fiscal year.
Four of these have been discontinued, 8 will be operated on an integrated
basis by local educational agencies in the 1956 fiscal year, and
8 will be operated by the Federal Government on an integrated basis.
Die remaining 4 projects are locally owned schools located on property
leased by the local educational agencies from the Department
of Defense. These schools will be operated on the same basis as are
other schools in these districts.
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
The Office of Education administered approximately $31,000,000
of Federal vocational education funds appropriated for allotment to
the States and Territories for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1955.
This was an increase of $5,000,000 over the previous year. The additional
funds were used primarily to extend the program to communities
not previously having vocational programs.
368636 ■ 56- ■ 11
154 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1955
The Assistant Commissioner for Vocational Education was made
an ex-officio member of the Federal Committee on Apprenticeship.
The Office participated in several Federal-State apprenticeship agency
joint conferences called by the U. S. Department of Labor. Closer
working relationships were established in the apprenticeship program
in the matter of understandings of the respective responsibilities of
this Office and these agencies in the gathering of statistics and the
development of programs of related instruction for apprentices conducted
by public schools.
A conference of State directors of vocational education was held to
consider policy matters in the administration of the total program of
vocational education. Areas studied included vocational guidance,
distributive education, home economics, trade and industries, and agriculture.
The recommendations of the conference will be used as a
basis of future considerations of policy.
The Office also held a planning conference on research in agricultural
education in which recommendations made by the National Committee
on Research in Agricultural Education were considered. As
a result, a comprehensive study is to be made of the Young Farmer
Program and a publication on the subject issued for use by vocational
leaders in agricultural education.
Staff members met with representatives of producers of both natural
and synthetic fibers to plan a training program in textile fibers for
salespeople employed in stores, including high school students enrolled
in cooperative distributive education programs.
The shortage of teachers of home economics persists although 7,693
persons were enrolled in college courses in 1954 preparing for the
teaching of home economics. The shortage is due to the facts that
home economics teachers marry after a few years of teaching and leave
the profession, and that programs of home economics are being established
in many more schools each year.
The shortage of coordinators of local cooperative programs in distributive
education and persons qualified for State level positions in
the program has become acute. The shortage in this field is due in
part to the fact that increased Federal funds were available for 1955
following several years of decreases in Federal funds which resulted
in the curtailment of teachers and coordinator training programs in
some of the States.
The shortage of vocational agriculture teachers has become more
acute than at any time since World War II despite the fact that 3,479
persons were being trained by the colleges as such teachers. The
shortage in this field is due largely to the fact that most of the vocational
agriculture teachers are trained in the land-grant colleges
where they take military training and become reserve officers. After
serving several years, many go into other than teaching occupations.
Office of Education 155
Increased demand for agricultural college graduates by commercial
concerns and State and Federal agricultural programs also contributes
to the shortage.
LAND-GRANT COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY FUNDS
Each year the Office of Education initiates certification as to each
State and Territory (1) whether it is entitled to receive its share of
the annual appropriations for the land-grant colleges and universities
and (2) the amounts it is entitled to receive. The certification for
the year ending June 30,1955, for the Bankhead-Jones funds (annual
appropriations) amounted to $2,501,500 and that for the Morrill-
Nelson funds (permanent appropriation) amounted to $2,550,000, a
grand total of $5,051,500.
COLLEGE HOUSING PROGRAM
The Office of Education provided advisory service to colleges and
universities and the Housing and Home Finance Agency on new applications
in the amount of $70,000,000 during fiscal 1955. These loan
requests are anticipated to provide residential facilities for 20,928
single students, 1,020 married students, and 323 faculty members.
The prevailing interest rate of 3.25 percent deterred many applicants
from completing loan requests and financing needed residential
facilities. Privately operated institutions used the program to a
greater extent than publicly operated institutions because the 3.25
interest rate is still favorable to the private college or university.
Publicly supported institutions tended either to delay construction or,
in some favorable instances, to secure loans at interest rates slightly
under the College Housing Program rate. Associations in higher
education continued to request lower interest rates, preferably under
3 percent, and a release of all remaining funds for immediate use.
Private investors continued to participate in the program. During
Fiscal 1955, individuals and syndicates are reported to have purchased
approximately $8,000,000 in college housing revenue bonds when
opened to competitive bids under the College Housing Program. A
few 40-yeax issues were sold to private investors, but the usual pattern
was that only the earlier issues were purchased by private investors.
ADULT EDUCATION
During the year the Office of Education gave recognition to the
rapidly growing movement of adult education by creating an Adult
Education Section. Its purposes are to: (