The Western States movement, involving over 100,000 workers, up and down the Pacific Coast States for the harvesting of a wide diversity of crops.

The wheat and small grain harvest movement, involving about 50,000 men, beginning in Texas and flowing north into Montana, North Dakota, and even Canada. Since this movement does not involve any extensive migration of families, it is not of special concern to this report.

5. Economically, the migrant farmworker occupies the lowest level of any group in the American economy. In 1957, domestic migrants on the average worked 131 days (including 16 days at nonfarm work). Their average earnings were $859 for the year. Male workers averaged 148 days of work, earning on the average $1,045. Female migrant workers averaged 80 days of work, earning $304 for the year.

6. National statistics on average family income of domestic migrants are not available. Information from a sample study in Belle Glade, Fla., showed average annual earnings of $1,733 per seasonal migratory holusehold, with an average of 1.9 workers per household. Among migrant households in southern Texas, with an average of 6.5 members, of whom 3 were workers, average annual earnings were $2,256 in 1956-less than half the median income for all U.S. households that year.

7. Children of migrant workers have fewer educational opportunities than any other group of children in our society. Their educational attainment and that of their parents is the lowest of any group.

8. In 1959, a total of 4,389 children under 16 were illegally employed on farms in 38 States and Puerto Rico in violation of the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Of this number, 1,698 were migrant youth and 2,691 were local children. The great majority were found working during school hours.

9. Currently, 42 percent of the 813 counties affected by family migration do not have full-time public child welfare services available, not even under multicounty arrangements that spread the services of a full-time worker over several counties. Statistical information is not available concerning the distribution of services of voluntary child welfare agencies in these 813 counties. Many of the counties are rural, however, and, by and large, services of voluntary agencies tend to be found in urban counties. Even in the 39 counties estimated to have 5,000 or more migrant workers, 10 do not have any service available from a fulltime public child welfare worker and 10 others either have 1 full-time worker or services only on a shared basis with 1 or more counties.

10. Reports from national voluntary organizations and State public welfare agencies show a gross lack of adequate care and protection for migrant children while their parents work. The tragic plight of these children is vividly portrayed in reports, over and over again, of tiny children taken to the fields early in the morning with their parents and left long hours alone in locked cars; children left to care for themselves, playing in roadways or drainage ditches and sometimes having accidents resulting in serious injury or even death; and children left in the camp areas or other migrant housing sites under the care of older children-older children who are themselves no more than 9 to 12 years of age, and sometimes younger.

11. In the entire Nation, there are only 24 day-care centers, licensed by State agencies, which primarily serve children of migrant families. Thirteen of these are in New York State alone. The combined aggregate capacity of all 24 centers would probably serve fewer than 1,000 children.

12. Cultural differences, language barriers, low educational levels, mobility, low economic status, isolation from stable community life, lack of resident status, an insanitary environment all contribute to increasing the child welfare and child health problems of migrant children and their families, and hence the need for having available to them child welfare services as well as child health services.

13. Migrant families, in comparison with the rest of the population, have high infant and maternal mortality rates, and more diarrheal diseases, nutritional deficiency, and communicable diseases. For example, according to testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor in October 1959, 66 per

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cent of the migrants in Minnesota aged 15 or more had positive tuberculin tests, compared with only 13 percent for the general population of the same age. 14. A large proportion of pregnant women in migrant families receive no prenatal care or adequate delivery or pospartum care.

15. While services under the maternal and child health and crippled children's programs are for the most part available to migrant families, a number of obstacles limit their use such as language barriers, distances to clinics, insufficient health department staff to meet the many problems of a large temporary population.

CONCLUSION

In recent years, public awareness and concern about the plight of the citizens of the United States who are migrant agricultural workers have increased. Evidence can be found of steps taken by growers, national voluntary agencies, and some State welfare or health agencies, in order to improve living conditions and alleviate the problems faced by migrant families and their children.

Nevertheless, much too little has yet been done. The plight of migrant families as a whole is one of endless and, for far too many, hopeless struggle against insurmountable odds. Year after year, they are unable to achieve even the bare minimum income, housing, education, and health and welfare services necessary for wholesome family life. As a result, the children are trapped in a vicious circle of unending poverty and rootlessness which prevents their having or taking advantage of opportunities for a better way of life.

The conditions under which migrants and their families live are conditions which we as a nation must take steps to improve.

RECOMMENDATIONS

These recommendations are focused on specific child welfare and child health measures that would contribute to alleviating the adverse conditions of children of migrant workers, especially children of working mothers. Although it is recognized that improvement is urgently needed in a wide variety of provisions impinging on or affecting migrant children, such as education, child labor, housing, and sanitation, no attempt is made to include in this report recommendations on all aspects of what needs to be done.

The Children's Bureau recommends a two-part program of immediate action, as follows:

1. Increased stimulation and assistance to the States to encourage them to take immediate steps for establishing or extending child welfare and child health services to migrant families. The Bureau recommends that this increased stimulation and assistance be accomplished through these methods:

(a) A legislative proposal for amending title V, part 3, of the Social Security Act to authorize a 5-year program of grants to State public welfare agencies to pay part of the cost of child welfare services, including study of the problems of the children of migrant agricultural laborers and the development and strengthening of services for these children, especially day care services. These grants would be apportioned by formula, based on the number of migrants. It is recommended that the conditions of plan approval be similar to those in the present law.

The reasons for recommending new legislation, rather than an increase in the appropriation under the present provisions of part 3, are as follows: (1) grants specifically for migrant children are needed to stimulate the development of services for this group; (2) an allotment of funds based on needs of States in relation to numbers of migrant workers is essential to provide Federal assistance to the States immediately concerned. An increase in the authorization and appropriation for child welfare services under the present provisions of title V, part 3, would not provide more Federal assistance for the States with the largest number of migrant laborers; (3) the 5-year limi

tation would stimulate the development of services for this group so that such services would become a part of the total child welfare program; and (4) the 5-year limitation would also provide for evaluation of the continuing need for this special grant-in-aid program.

(b) Increasing, beginning with the fiscal year 1962, the amount recommended for annual appropriation for maternal and child health services under title V, part 1, to $25 million, the full amount authorized. This will provide increases in the apportioned funds which States will be urged to use for maternal and child health services for migrants. In addition, this will provide an additional $875,000 for special project grants, a major share of which would be available for demonstration programs for migrants.

(c) Increased technical assistance to the States and to local communities in which the migrants live. This would be provided through expansion of staff in the regional offices. Headquarters staff would also be expanded, such as in the field of day care services, so as to step up the development of guide material for use by agencies and organizations engaged in helping migrant children.

2. Increased investigating and reporting activities relating to the development of effective measures for improving the welfare and health of migrant children. The Children's Bureau recommends that this be done through the following methods:

(a) Increasing to $5 million, for the fiscal year 1962, the amount recommended for appropriation to implement the 1960 amendment to title V, part 3, of the Social Security Act, authorizing grants for research and demonstration to public or other nonprofit institutions of higher learning, and to public or other nonprofit agencies and organizations engaged in research or child welfare activities, for special research or demonstration projects in the field of child welfare which are of regional or national significance and for special projects for the demonstration of new methods or facilities which show promise of substantial contribution to the advancement of child welfare. Research and demonstration projects in relation to migrant children would be given high priority in the selection of projects for these grants.

(b) Conduct of a variety of research studies by staff of the Children's Bureau. In addition to carrying out specific studies, the Bureau would also employ staff for three teams of professional staff to follow the migrant workers in the streams originating in Florida, Texas, and California, respectively. These teams would gather information about what is happening to children in these families, and seek out and report on measures that have proved successful in meeting the needs of these children.

(c) A national information-education campaign to acquaint the public with conditions of migrant children and to make widely available information about research and demonstration findings and measures that various communities have found effective in helping to meet the problems of migrant children. This campaign would include films, filmstrips, exhibits, speaker aids, speeches, magazine articles, press releases, special events, and a large number of supporting publications.

APPENDIX

TABLE 1.-Estimated peak employment and period of employment of domestic migrant labor in agriculture, by State, 19591

1 Migrants include intrastate, interstate, and Puerto Rican workers.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Employment Security. Based on in-season farm labor reports for the 15th of each month.

TABLE 2.-Distribution of States by estimated peak number of domestic agricul tural migrants, 1959