! Data compiled by Vicente Ximenes, Bureau of Business Research, University of New Mexico. * Estimated by Bureau of Business Research, University of New Mexico. Data from "Public Welfare Statistics," December 1955. Data compiled by New Mexico Unemployment Compensation Commission, April 1955. 1 THE WELFARE PROBLEM IN DESIGNATED 1 "DEPRESSED AREAS" IN NEW MEXICO (Presented by Murray A. Heintz, director, New Mexico Department of Public Welfare) Welfare administrators are vitally concerned with the proposed legislation to alleviate conditions of excessive unemployment in "depressed areas" through the promotion of business and industry and through retraining of the labor force. The staff of the New Mexico Department of Public Welfare has been talking about our "depressed areas" for 10 years. We find that the "depressed areas" of our State as measured by welfare standards include the areas designated as depressed according to the measurements set forth in the proposed legislation under discussion. In addition to the defined "depressed areas" covering 10 counties: Colfax, Guadalupe, Harding, Mora, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, San Miguel, Santa Fe, Socorro and Taos, welfare standards would include 2 other counties, McKinley and Sierra. They may not qualify by the unemployment ratio measurement but, rather, would be termed under-employment areas because a large portion of the population while employed, as the Navaho Indians in McKinley, are not profitably employed because the area is not suitably developed to support the population. For this reason, Sierra County has had a 23 percent decrease in population since 1950 and its situation is exactly the same as that found in adjacent Socorro County. It is a truism that unemployment and under employment are accompanied by low income and lack of purchasing power which create a spiral of economic decline and depression. This, in turn, is accompanied by a high incident of economic dependency and social maladjustment. I have several charts which locate New Mexico's "depressed areas" and illustrate the relationship of the three measures of "depressed areas"-unemployment, per capita income, and economic dependency. The 10 New Mexico counties designated as "depressed areas" by the standard of unemployment contain 18 percent of the total population of the State, but 36 percent of the recipients of public aid. The average per capita income in the 10 New Mexico counties is slightly more than one-half (58 percent) of the per capita income of the State. If business activities and agricultural production in these counties could be improved and the public aid recipient rate reduced by even one-third, we estimate that this would mean an annual savings of approximately $2 million to the 1 Section 6-a, Senate bill No. 2663, 84th Congress. Department of Public Welfare; in other words, reduce our annual budget by more than 10 percent. This is a practical but narrow point of view. The ec nomic gains and the intrinsic values which could grow out of the proposed legislation are much more important. However, I am immediately concerned with the practical aspect of welfare needs. The increased demands for public assistance and welfare services where pr ductivity is low and tax resources correspondingly limited present an irrecs z cilable situation. Prior to this year, New Mexico has not had sufficient State tax resources to allow the Department of Public Welfare to provide for the various service programs, including hospitalization for tuberculosis, and per 100 percent of need for a minimum subsistence standard of living for pabi.. assistance recipients. Our general assistance program provides for a residual group of unemployal-persons who cannot meet eligibility requirements for the special categories : which there is Federal financial participation. We have no program of relief families of unemployed wage earners able and willing to work but in need after exhausting unemployment compensation benefits. This situation has resulted in the exhaustion of local public and private resources available for welfare purposes where mining operations have been discontinued, or in the drought areas. To partially meet this situation in March 1954 the Department of Pul Welfare reestablished, after 10 years, a program of direct distribution of conmodities. For a large group of what we term "unemployed employables," surpis food from the Agricultural Marketing Administration is the only form of pulle aid, but these people do not want relief. They want work. Therefore, the concerted efforts of the New Mexico Economic Development Commission, the Unemployment Compensation Commission, Vocational Rehabilitation, the De partment of Public Welfare, and all other Government agencies, are directed toward economic development, rehabilitation and retraining of the labor fore which for at least two generations, has been handicapped by an inadequate economy. NEW MEXICO COUNTIES RANKED BY PUBLIC AID RECIPIENT / RATE PER 1,000 a/ Unduplicatod count of persons included in public assistance cases and in b/ Population in 1955, ustimated by the Bureau of Business Research, c/ Vicento T. Ximenes, "Poraonal Income in New Mexico, 1954", New Mexico Business, d/Only 3 canen in county. Designated "Depressed Areas". |