Mr. DONALDSON. One thing that you have to remember is that once you become entitled to these benefits, you may live for another 20, 25 years, you will draw ordinarily much more in Social Security benefits than your husband would ever have paid into it.

Mr. PETERSON. I think this is another consideration.

Senator Moss. I understand that at the first part, but then I thought she modified it back.

Social Security is paid into a trust fund, as you know, and then the benefits come out on a certain formula, and it does not come the same to everybody. Everybody cannot just take his money out and go at any time. There would be no way to administer the act and so they have to have actuaries that determine what the average length of life will be, or the projected length, and so on, in order to make the system work.

Now, it is true that a person that dies within a year or two after he has first qualified for Social Security probably received very little of the money that he paid in.

On the other hand, some other fellow may live to be 95 years old, may draw for 30 years or something, and he is drawing much, much more than he ever put in, but the two balance off.

Now, on the payment of only 822 percent, the only reason I can think that Congress did that, was the theory that it costs a little more than when there were two people eating, than when just one was left.

That may not be totally valid, because the amount we are talking about is relatively small, and I realize that nobody is living in luxury on what they draw from Social Security benefits.

Both Mr. Peterson and I stressed, that the Social Security program, when it was set up, it was thought to be a supplemental type of program, and not ever designed to really cover all of the needs of the people who are beneficiaries.

any

Now, we have been moving up, trying to get closer to supplying a livable income, but we never have achieved that. I do not think body believes that Social Security overpays anybody at any time with the cost of living as it is today, but, you know, we have to find answers, and that is part of the pressure on the other side. Yes, this lady.

Mrs. GALANIS. I am Mrytle Galanis, wife of George Galanis. I would like to speak on his behalf. When he lost the gift shop, the 31st of December of 1973, this left George with no job.

VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION PROGRAMS

I was working part time at the nursing home, with his disability, Social Security, and part-time work for me, that was not enough to feed us, to pay our rent, or for a car to get back and forth to work, so we started fishing around for a place for George to work.

We learned of the Green Thumb program. We thought perhaps he could get on that, so we filled out all of the necessary papers, and called on the various organizations in the community in regard to helping the unemployed, and the handicapped, and so forth.

It took quite a few months. Finally we heard from Green Thumb, he had been turned down. He made a few dollars too much in 1973. That was 1973, what is he going to do in 1974, that is when we need it, now, not last year.

Last year we were getting by, but this year, George is without a job, nothing coming in, so this is why George made his own job, February 1, he awakened in the morning, he said, "Guess what I am going to do?"

I said, "I have not any idea what you are going to do."

He said, "Today I am going out, and I am going to take orders for merchandise the blind make."

And that is what George has been doing ever since, because he was turned down on ever so many places around town about getting a job. With George, what can you do, you cannot do that, you cannot do this. Nobody gave George a chance. I asked permission if George could be my volunteer over at the nursing home, and he comes most everyday, some days he has to make deliveries or take orders from the various people around town, so why should he be denied a job because he made a few dollars more than what was allotted last year, but that does not count for this year.

Mr. PETERSON. I would like our district office, with your approval, to review his Social Security status, Senator, and look at it to determine his earnings and his income, and what we can do about this situation. If you could check it, and get the necessary information, we will review the case. Then I would like to ask Dr. Walter, or there may be some other State people with the Division of the Blind and Vocational Rehabilitation programs here, about the question on employment and on rehabilitation.

Are you with those programs, Dr. Walter?

Dr. WALTER. I would have to look into it.
Senator Moss. Or Dr. White?

Dr. WHITE. I am familiar with them, but not that thoroughly. Mr. PETERSON. I would like to ask for an investigation of the program for employment.

Senator Moss. Thank you for that suggestion, and I would say to all of you who are here, these gentlemen, when we finish the open hearing part, would be glad to talk to you on your individual situation, such as it has been presented here by Mrs. Galanis, to see if there is any way that your problem can be met, because you do have a very severe problem, and we would like to see it met without any hardship to you, if that is possible, and that is what these gentlemen will do who are here today, and you take advantage of this and go over to talk with them. The gentleman in the rear row.

Mr. SANCHEZ. I am Manuel Sanchez, and I have been turned down, and two doctors said I have got black lung, and I do not see why I cannot get it. I have the reports right here.

Senator Moss. Do you have a hearing scheduled to come up?
Mr. SANCHEZ. I have to put in a new claim.

Senator Moss. You have two doctors, you say, who have examined you, and it is their finding, positive, that you have it?

Mr. SANCHEZ. I have the letters here and the reports. Do you want to read them?

Senator Moss. No, I do not, because I do not have the authority to say yes or no in your individual case. I do not know whether there was any other reason. How long did you work in the mines?

Mr. SANCHEZ. Forty-five years.

Senator Moss. That seems to be long enough to me.

I cannot tell you specifically, but I again would advise that you should consult, on your specific case with the gentlemen here and see if they can give you advice as to how you can proceed.

Mr. PETERSON. We would be very happy to. You see Mr. Donaldson after the meeting.

Senator Moss. Yes, sir. We have now President McDonald.

RAISING MINIMUM EARNINGS AMOUNT

Mr. McDONALD. Would you care to comment further on the legislation you referred to in your opening comments relative to raising the minimum amount that a person can earn, and still qualify for the Social Security, and, the second question, what is the progress, if any is being made, to increase the Social Security benefits to encourage or make early retirement more attractive, say age 62.

Senator Moss. Yes. What I said in my opening remarks, and I am very glad to comment on this, is that with the establishment of Social Security, for some reason, the Congress felt that they should prohibit outside earnings.

Of course, that was in a time of depression back in the 1930's and early 1940's, the beginning of the 1940's, and I think that influenced a lot, the psychology of saying you cannot have people who are drawing some income and also taking up jobs, when so many people are out of work, but as the years have gone by, and as we have watched Social Security expand and develop, and become better, we recognize that there was an inequitable thing here, and in a sense, it was somewhat self-defeating to prohibit people who are drawing benefits because of age and of qualification of seeking outside employment, and doing many things we needed done in our society. So bit by bit, we have been raising the amount, and the last raise was up to $2,400 a year, so now a person on Social Security may earn as much as $2,400 from outside income, without affecting his entitlement, but with that, I said that I believed we ought to disregard even that limitation.

I would hope that we could put it as high as $5,000 a year. or it would not bother me at all if we just eliminated that prohibition altogether.

I think people who have reached the age of entitlement ought to be encouraged to go right along and do what they are qualified to do. In fact, I think that is one of the great wastes of society, is to suddenly tell people, now you have to stop working, just stay home and rock on the porch and do whatever else.

Now, of course, some people are not physically well, they gradually find they cannot do the kind of work they did before.

Well, let them find alternative types of work, and the great quote that was about-we gain wisdom-Dr. Kassell's quote, "we gain wisdom by living," is the thing we are throwing away if we do not let those people contribute to the mainstream of society, to be effective, to do their thing in helping people around them, and so I am a great advocate that we remove that limitation, but at the present time, under the law, it is $2,400 a year that may be earned on the outside. What was your second question?

Mr. McDONALD. The Social Security benefits.

Senator Moss. By lowering the age for qualification. This is rather

a controversial decision to be made, and it is being debated rather hotly, and, as you can see, it does cut both ways.

One, because what we have said before, it encourages maybe some people to move off into the more nonproductive area at a younger age, when actually they could continue, and, of course, it makes it somewhat more expensive to operate the system under that, and coupled with that, since there are disability qualifications, if a person is really disabled, he can qualify at that earlier age without going to the full

65 or 63.

I would say there ought to be perhaps a little relaxation on how a person qualifies, how much disability he has to qualify, but I am not too sure we ought to begin dropping the age.

We are all living a little longer, and hopefully, with the advances of medicine, we are in pretty good shape when we get up there at 63 or 65, and I am hoping that we can improve our general level of health to where that would still be the realistic time to make the qualification. I do not know whether any of you gentlemen want to add anything

to that or not.

Mr. PETERSON. I think I can speak for my colleagues, that we are in total agreement. It would ease our administrative problems also.

Senator Moss. Thank you very much. I think we must now terminate this part of our panel, and I want to thank all of you gentlemen who have come and participated.

You have done an excellent job, and you have offered to talk with individuals, if they have a specific problem, and I ask you to try to work it through for them, to finding a solution to their problems. We have a marvelous system, but it does baffle me sometimes, when I try to answer some of the technical questions involved.

IMPROVED SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM

I think that the Social Security system is an area in which we have grown as a country and as a society.

There are improvements that need to be made, and other areas that perhaps we need to move into, but it has so changed the pattern of society, that it is hard to remember now back before there was a Social Security system, when there was always a county poorhouse and things of that sort, so at least we can be that optimistic. We have moved along, and we are doing better.

I thank you all, gentlemen, for coming.

We are going to run for a little longer, but I will not be able to stay in the afternoon. We are glad to have so many people here.

There will be a luncheon prepared for you at the school at 1 o'clock, and. therefore, we will proceed until that time.

We are going to hear now from Dr. Melvin White, and Dr. Bruce Walter, both of whom are here.

Dr. Melvin White is the director of the Rocky Mountain Gerontological Center at the University of Utah, and Dr. Bruce Walter is the director of the Medical Care Services, Utah State Department of Social Services, Division of Health.

The gentlemen, obviously, will be speaking on the health problems of the elderly, and will be available to answer questions as the panel has been before.

Probably, we can only cover one of these before the break, but I wish both Dr. White and Dr. Walter would come up here at the table, and on my list, I have Dr. White first, but if for any reason you want to turn that around, we can do it. All right.

Dr. Melvin White, director of the Rocky Mountain Gerontological Center at the University of Utah. You may make whatever opening remarks you have, Dr. White, and then we will see if there are questions that the people here would like to have you answer.

STATEMENT OF DR. MELVIN WHITE, DIRECTOR, ROCKY MOUNTAIN GERONTOLOGICAL CENTER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

Dr. WHITE. Thank you, Senator Moss. I appreciate very much being here today.

It is interesting, the topic they asked me to speak on is how to stay mentally alert and prevent senility; I felt pretty comfortable on this topic until several months ago, when I was addressing a women's group in Salt Lake. I was speaking on the same subject, "how to avoid senility." There were about 50 women present. After I finished speaking, they thanked me, and as I was leaving, one of the ladies asked if I would wait for a few minutes as she had something she wanted me to hear. After I heard her comments, I again waved goodbye to the group they were all watching me and I turned the corner through an archway which I thought led to the outside, but went right into a closet. Leaving the closet, I then had a choice of two other doors, and made another mistake in choosing the wrong door of the two. The only thing I could say jokingly, was that if there were any volunteers to help lead me to my car, I would appreciate it. I think the women in attendance will always remember that talk, given by a senile old man on how to avoid senility. In a more serious vein, it is unfortunate that we have long accepted that certain conditions are inevitable in aging, and one of the conditions which we have accepted is that intellectually we have to decline as we grow older.

Let me share with you just one or two studies which perhaps may shed some light on this.

There is a study made by Paul B. Baltes and K. Warner Schaie, at Pennsylvania State, of 500 individuals, aged 21 through 70. They studied these people over a period of 7 years to see whether or not there was a decline in their intellectual functioning over that time. What they found, in essence, is that there is no decline on the basis of age. In other words, those people, even over 70, showed no marked evidence of decline in their intellectual ability to function.

This type of study is supported by others. At Iowa State, at one time where they gave a group of students at the beginning of World War I the old Army Alpha test, and they tested the same people later in their sixty's and seventy's, and on the basis of this test, they found again on four out of eight subtests, there were no changes intellectually and on four subtests, the people actually improved.

Another longitudinal study conducted at Duke University, determined the same thing-that intellectually, we do not have to go downhill, we do not have to regress as we grow older, at least not to the extent we have previously believed.

Now, probably the reason for the differences in how we used to believe and what we believe now is based on the fact that most of our