Further, we should have a model for the private sector, giving some indication of the variables involved in having business firms develop growth-related schemes for retirement income.

In brief, I would like to see us direct our thinking towards the goal of achieving a tie-in of retirement benefits, either public or private, with the growth of the economy.

Mr. ORIOL. Miss McCamman, did you have any questions before we conclude?

Miss MCCAMMAN. No, thank you.

Mr. ORIOL. I will close.

I know the Senator wanted to make a few points. One of them was just as the social security system has multiple purposes, so does this inquiry. We are desperately concerned with the problems faced by people now old, but as each of you have said in one way or another, we are looking to the future, to the retirement problems or the retirement successes that generations in the future might have.

Another aspect that has become very clear, especially this afternoon, is seeking after more knowledge in certain areas, and it is clear that if this committee formulates a list of areas of research, or if not research, the action-model-type approach that was just suggested, that we will be doing a great deal.

I think a third theme here is that we must of necessity take the broad picture. As the Senator said this morning, this is not a hearing about the social security system. This is not a hearing about private pensions. It is an attempt to draw together strands that too often in congressional considerations of necessity are never put together.

I think everybody here today is well aware of the high level of response that we have received from our task force members. In fact, our task force members have opened up new lines of inquiry here today, and I hope that we can continue to draw upon their volunteer help.

We appreciate it very much, and especially Dorothy McCamman, who has heard so many good things about the task force report-in fact it was unaimous today-and I am sure she must feel very good about it.

We also hope that there will be specialized hearings by individual subcommittees before the final wrap-up hearing by the full committee. This looks like something that will take many months.

This committee will resume the hearing tomorrow in this room at 10 o'clock, and we will have statements by two witnesses, followed by a panel discussion of Federal officials who will discuss various things discussed in the task force report and other matters.

Once again, thank you very much.

(Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Wednesday, April 30, 1969.)

ECONOMICS OF AGING: TOWARD A FULL SHARE IN

ABUNDANCE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 1969

U.S. SENATE,

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING,

Washington, D.C.

The special committee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to call, in room G308 (auditorium), New Senate Office Building, Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr. (chairman), presiding.

Present: Senators Williams and Saxbe.

Committee staff members present: William E. Oriol, staff director; John Guy Miller, minority staff director; Dorothy McCamman, consultant on economics of aging, and Patricia Slinkard, chief clerk.

The CHAIRMAN. Dean Schottland, would you come up and we will get underway with the second day of consideration of the economics of aging.

We had a very productive day yesterday and I am sure we are embarked upon another today.

We welcome you here, Dean Schottland, from Brandeis University. We are looking forward to this very much.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES I. SCHOTTLAND, DEAN, FLORENCE HELLER GRADUATE SCHOOL FOR ADVANCED STUDIES IN SOCIAL WELFARE, BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY

Dean SCHOTTLAND. Thank you very much.

My name is Charles I. Schottland. I am dean of the Florence Heller Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare, Brandeis University.

With reference to the subject matter being considered today, may I with your indulgence further identify myself. I was Commissioner of Social Security from 1954 to 1959, and I had the opportunity of examining the subsequent income maintenance position of the aged as Chairman of the Income Maintenance section of the White House Conference on Aging in 1961.

At the present time, as president of the National Association of Social Workers I have just participated in that organization's delegate assembly held in Atlantic City a few days ago in which we debated the various alternative ways of assuring income to the American people.

I would like to share with you some of the ideas which I have come to believe after many years of study and participation in programs of income maintenance for the aged.

Most of my ideas are certainly not original, but perhaps their presentation will add to what has already been stated to your committee. Those of us who were interested and involved in the Social Security Act of 1935 and its administration in subsequent years had a vision and a dream.

We hoped that the time would not be too far in the future when the senior citizens of our land, having contributed a lifetime of service to their country and to their families, would be able to have sufficient income in their old age to take all of them out of poverty, and enable them to spend their last years on earth in security, health, and comfort.

We foresaw the end of old-age assistance as we expressed the hope that old-age security under the Socity Security Act would eventually encompass all of the aged on an income standard sufficient to maintain them in security and comfort.

Even as late as 1961, many still thought we would realize that dream and that vision if we just waited long enough. The background paper of the Income Maintenance Section of the 1961 Aging Conference summarized this view as follows: "The anticipated improvement in the income position of the aged makes this a transitional problem which should not be handled now through a method that commits us for the future."

But the background paper also took account of the very different view of others who believed: "Predictions about the income position of the aged in the future are thought to be overly optimistic."

Clearly, your task force report supports the latter view. As you say in your preface to the report, Senator Williams: "As no other document has yet done, it states a fundamental truth: The economic problems of old age are not only unsolved for today's elderly, but they will not be solved for the elderly of the future-today's workers-unless this Nation takes positive, comprehensive actions going far beyond those of recent years."

For those of us who were laboring on behalf of income for the aged, this vision, this hope, and this dream were an important part of our philosophy and our point of view.

Today, in the year 1969, this vision and this dream have been shattered because millions of men and women in their old age are today living in poverty, denied the elementary necessities of food, clothing, and shelter on a scale of comfort and decency, being supported on oldage assistance on a standard of aid that keeps them in poverty, or receiving old-age security payments on a standard which keeps them in poverty and forces several hundred thousand of them on old-age assistance, also.

This is not what we planned when Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced the Social Security Act. It is not what we anticipated as the average income of Americans began to rise after World War II.

This is not what we looked forward to in 1961 at the Aging Conference. But it is the situation as the Task Force of the Special Committee on Aging of the U.S. Senate has made so abundantly clear in its report of March 1969, "Economics of Aging: Toward a Full Share in Abundance."

This report is a devastating indictment of the way we are treating the aged of America and puts to the fore certain questions. If many other industrial nations of the world such as Norway, Sweden, Den

mark, and others have abolished poverty for their aged population, why cannot America, richer than these countries by any standard of measurement, not do likewise? Why is it not possible for the aged to have "a full share in abundance" in our society of abundance?

Your report showed certain things clearly, but I would like to bring them out as a preface to my remarks. Low income is the most important problem of older people; the older they get, the more serious the problem since they exhaust resources; and the future holds little promise that their economic position will improve.

Unless we take significant steps now to increase the income of the nonworking aged, we shall be saying to several million aged that America feels they must remain in poverty.

The foregoing summarizes the situation of many of the aged in America today, and the question is, what can we do about it? There are many suggestions now before the Congress and many ideas being discussed around the country to improve the income maintenance programs of social security and public assistance as well as consideration being given to such schemes as negative income tax, children's and family allowance and a variety of other methods to insure income when income stops because of broad social and economic factors such as old age, unemployment, and sickness.

"WHAT IS OUR OBJECTIVE?"

When we think of improving the income position of the aged we are faced squarely with the answer to the question, "What is our objective?" Are we seeking an incremental approach and gradual improvement over a period of years in the income position of the aged?

If we are, what we are saying as a matter of policy and objective is that many of the aged should continue to exist in poverty, should continue to suffer deprivation because of lack of income while their situation is gradually improved through slow increments and increases in social security, public assistance, and other programs.

But if our objective is to make an immediate improvement in the income position of the aged, we must be prepared to take significant and bold steps, and I would like to outline some of these at this time. Our aim should be clear-the several million aged group should be removed from poverty quickly.

My recommendations fall into several categories. First, we must provide a substantial increase in the benefits to the aged under our social security program. Social security benefits constitute today the major source of income for most older

persons.

RECOMMENDATIONS: SOCIAL SECURITY

Therefore, any program to increase the income of such older persons must involve major benefit increases in benefits under OASDHI. A person receiving $80 a month at the present time, for example, is not going to be helped very much if we give him a 7-percent increase, thereby bringing his $80 a month to $85.60. I recommend that starting immediately Congress raise the minimum benefit to $100.

I believe, also, that we must maintain the wage-related benefit structure. And if we are to do so, we cannot have too small a spread between the minimum and the maximum. I, therefore, would urge as a second