Long-Range Trends in Old-Age Assistance

vv HEN the Social Security Act was adopted in 1935, two programs for providing economic security for persons aged 65 and over were established-old-age insurance and old-age assistance. The insurance program provided for benefits on retirement to workers engaged in certain categories of employment. Subsequent legislation advanced the beginning date for payment of the monthly insurance benefits, broadened coverage, and liberalized the eligibility conditions so that a greater proportion of the aged could qualify. Under the 1935 act, individuals aged 61 or over on January 1, 1937, could not qualify for monthly oldage insurance benefits, which were scheduled to begin in 1942. At the outset, therefore, the assistance program was intended to take care of persons who were already past age 65 and those who would reach that age in the next few years. In the long-range future, however, old-age assistance would still be expected to play an important role because the coverage under the insurance program was by no means universal. Even if coverage had been made universal and the benefits high enough so that no great number of insurance beneficiaries would need supplementary assistance, there would still have been a large group likely to need aid when they reached age 65. These were the men and women, formerly employed, who were under age 65 in 1937 and who had permanently withdrawn from the labor market (principally because of disability), the wives of such men, and widows whose husbands had died before 1937. These persons could not possibly meet the eligibility requirements for insurance benefits established by the 1935 act. The Committee on Economic Security, which made the studies underlying the Social Security Act, prepared long-range estimates of the number of persons who would be