Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1957–58

amount of total expenditures is reduced to an amount per inhabitant. Interyear and interstate variations in the total outlay for assistance payments depend upon differences between years and among States in the average monthly assistance payments per recipient, the proportion of the population aided (recipient rates), and the size of the total population. In analyzing variations in assistance expenditures, however, it is desirable to remove this last factor-differences in the size of the population-by expressing costs as an amount per inhabitant. It is then possible to study the effect that variations in recipient rates and in average payments to recipients have on the amounts expended. The expenditure per inhabitant is derived by dividing the cost Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1957-58” 1949-50 (16.8 percent). Substantial increases in per inhabitant expenditures have been due to amendments to the Social Security Act that raised the amount of Federal participation in public assistance, thereby stimulating the granting of higher payments to recipients, or to a rise in unemployment that deprived more persons of the necessities of life. Both factors were responsible for the sharp increase in assistance costs in 194849, but greater unemployment was the principal cause in 1949-50 and 195’7-58. A comparison of assistance expenditures between years and among States is easier to see when the The $3$!! billion expended from Federal, State, and local funds for assistance payments under all five public assistance programs during the fiscal year 1957-58 amounted to $18.73 for every person in the Nation. Per capita expenditures were higher than those in the preceding year by $1.30 or 7.5 percent-a yearly rate of increase that has been exceeded only twice in the past 10 years, once in 1948-49 (20.9 percent) and again in