Public Assistance Goals: Recommendations of the Social Security Board

THE PURPOSE of public assistance is to provide at least a minimum degree of economic security to persons in need. Public assistance programs complement other programs for economic security by supplying basic maintenance to needy persons for whom benefits are not available or are insufficient. The relative place of public assistance in a system of social security depends on the scope and adequacy of other measures designed to keep people from becoming needy. Looking into the future, we may assume that public assistance will play a progressively smaller role as coverage of the social insurances is extended, benefits become more nearly adequate, additional risks are insured, and the insurance programs have time to mature. In the immediate future, however, and perhaps for a generation, public assistance will be a major part of the social security system. Whether the volume of need is larger or smaller, public assistance should meet effectively whatever need exists. Because of the social and economic dislocations resulting from the war and the impending transition to peace, 1945 sessions of State legislatures will face problems of unusual complexity and magnitude. The forces of war and peace are intensifying the need for amendments to public assistance legislation. Yet the experience of the 9 years during which the Social Security Act has been operating indicates that changes would be in order even in normal times. State legislatures will be concerned not only with measures to improve old-age assistance, aid to dependent children, and aid to the blind, which come under the Social Security Act, but also with ways of strengthening general assistance, which is now wholly a responsibility of State and local governments. During the war years, major changes have taken place in governmental provisions for aiding needy persons. With the liquidation of the Federal work programs and the termination of the food stamp plan and surplus commodity distribution, old-age assistance, aid to dependent children , and aid to the blind—operated by States and localities with the financial help of the Federal Govern-ment—and the program of general assistance—operated by the States and localities without Federal sharing of costs—have become in nearly all States the only means of furnishing public aid. The essential flexibility of public assistance has been amply demonstrated by the substantial declines in assistance rolls during the war. Between December 1941, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and July 1944, the number of cases on the general assistance …