2. The average length of hospital stay for all persons hospitalized vas 9.7 days with virtually no differences between those with insurance and without insurance.

3. The number of hospital days for 100 persons per year was 100 Hays; for those with insurance the rate was 110 per 100 persons, and for those without insurance the rate was 80.

4. The insured rural-farm population had a hospital admission rate of 17 per 100 and the insured urban population had a rate of 12. There was no difference for those not insured.

5. The number of surgical procedures per 100 persons per year for all families was 6; among insured families the rate was 7 and among the uninsured the rate was 4.

6. Among all families, 34 percent of the individuals sought dentists' services during a year, varying from 17 percent for income groups under $2,000 to 56 percent for income groups over $7,500.

TABLE 9.-Number of hospital days per 100 persons in the population, by family

Source: National Family Survey of Medical Care Costs and Voluntary Health Insurance: Preliminary Report, Odin W. Anderson, Health Information Foundation, 1954.

TABLE 10.-Percentage of persons consulting dentists during the survey year, by family income

1 Percentage of persons consulting a dentist was not computed for groups of less than 50 persons. Source: National Family Survey of Medical Care Costs and Voluntary Health Insurance: Preliminary Report, Odin W. Anderson, Health Information Foundation, 1954.

DEBT AMONG FAMILIES DUE TO COSTS OF PERSONAL HEALTH SERVICES, JULY 1953

Highlights

1. Among all families, 15 percent are in debt to hospitals, physicians, dentists, and other providers of medical goods and services, and their total debt is $900 million.

2. In absolute terms this means that approximately 7.5 million families have a medical debt and about 1 million of these families owe $195 or more.

3. The average debt among all families for bills owed to hospitals, physicians, dentists, and other providers of medical goods and services is $121.

4. When debts to financial institutions and individuals are included, the national total is $1.1 billion.

5. A greater proportion, 21 percent, of the families with children. have a medical debt than those without children.

6. Four percent of the families reported borrowing from financial institutions and individuals to pay charges for personal health services.

7. The greater the proportion of family income paid out for personal health services, the greater is the likelihood that the family seeks a loan.

TABLE 11.-Percent of families with some medical indebtedness at end of the survey year, July 1953, by family income for families with and without insurance

1 In no instances did the amount unknown exceed 1 percent. Outstanding medical indebtedness includes debts owed to hospitals, physicians, dentists and other suppliers of medical goods and services at the end of the survey year less any amount which the family planned to pay on such bills during the month following the interview.

Source: National Family Survey of Medical Care Costs and Voluntary Health Insurance. Preliminary Report, Odin W. Anderson, Health Information Foundation, 1954.

TABLE 12.-Families reporting medical indebtedness, by family income and percent of income paid out for health

1 The amount of income paid out for health is net outlay plus amount paid by the family for hospital, surgical, or medical expense insurance. Net outlay excludes benefits received from hospital, surgical, or medical expense insurance.

For definition of indebtedness see footnote 2 table 11.

3 This percentage has not been computed for groups of under 50 families.

Source: National Family Survey of Medical Care Costs and Voluntary Health Insurance. Preliminary Report, Odin W. Anderson, Health Information Foundation, 1954.

TABLE 13.-Percentage of families reporting borrowing to meet charges for personal health services by percent of family income paid out for health

1 The amount of income paid out for health is net outlay plus amounts paid by the family for voluntary health insurance. Net outlay excludes hospital, surgical, and medical insurance benefits.

* Included here are families who reported borrowing money during the survey year from regular lending institutions, friends, relatives, or any other source, for the express purpose of paying for personal health services.

Source: National Family Survey of Medical Care Costs and Voluntary Health Insurance. Preliminary Report, Odin W. Anderson, Health Information Foundation, 1954,

A.

SECTION 5. EDUCATION: CHILDREN AND ADULTS

-SELECTED STATISTICS ON EDUCATION AND VOCATIONAL TRAINING1 The tables in this section present some of the basic statistical facts. regarding education. No separate data are available, in these tables, for low-income families, as such. The relation between education and income can, however, be inferred from the data presented for the individual States, from the data for farm and rural nonfarm groups versus urban groups, and from the data for white versus nonwhite sectors of the population.

It will be observed that illiteracy is higher in the rural farm areas than in others, and is also higher among the nonwhite population than among the white. For both the white and the nonwhite groups there is a close relation between the lack of formal education and illiteracy; however, the low level of formal education appears to have had less effect on literacy for the white group than for the nonwhite group. (See table 4.) This, possibly, is due to factors other than formal education which the two groups experience differently (segregation, economic opportunity, etc.). Table 2 is perhaps of special interest in indicating that the proportion of illiteracy depends upon the years. of school completed, rather than upon residence (urban, rural nonfarm, and rural farm). Table 6 shows the inferior amount of formal education received by the nonwhite portion of the population.

One measure of differences in educational opportunities among the States is indicated by the estimated average annual salary of the classroom teachers in each State. The differences among the States are great. As shown in table 6, in 1954-55 the average annual salary of classroom teachers ranged from $4,925 in one State to a low of $2,050 in another, the former being nearly 21⁄2 times as great as the latter. There can be little doubt that such differences in teachers' salaries lead to differences in the quality of teaching available to pupils in these two States.

The Federal Vocational Education Acts are, of course, designed to improve the vocational opportunities of pupils who do not plan to attend college. Expenditures for federally aided vocational education are at the level of over $151 million. Of this amount, the Federal Government contributed about $25 million. State and local funds were $55 million and $71 million, respectively.

There has always been some question whether the conjunction of high income and high education means that poor education in a State leads to low income, or whether low income leads to poor education. Undoubtedly, both influences are at work. Good education and good income each has its own beneficent effects. There can be little doubt that the relation between these two factors is a reciprocal one, with good education improving income, which in turn provides the funds necessary for good education. Of the two, education seems to be the fundamental factor, and the one more directly open to improvement.

1 Introductory statement prepared by the Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

[Information on literacy was obtained in 1952 only for persons completing less than 6 years of school, and in 1947 only for persons completing less than 5 years of school. Persons completing more than that amount were classified as being literate]

1 Not available.

Source: Population Characteristics. Current Population Reports, Series P-20, No. 45. Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce.