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Developing Insight in Initial Interviews. New York: Family Service Association of America, 1947. 54 pp. 60 cents.

Three papers devoted to the principles and importance of the initial interview in the case-work process. WALLING, LORRAINE D. "State Leadership in Local Staff Development." Journal of Social Casework, New York, Vol. 28, June 1947, pp. 228235. 35 cents.

The experience of the Virginia Department of Public Welfare in local staff development by means of semi

nars.

Health and Medical Care AMERICAN HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION and NATIONAL HEALTH AND WELFARE RETIREMENT ASSOCIATION, INC. A Na

tional Retirement Program for Employees of Hospitals. New York: National Health and Welfare Retirement Association, Inc., 1947. 15 pp.

Indicates the reasons hospital employees need a retirement program and outlines provisions of a typical scheme.

PALMER, MARY B. "Experiment in

Health." Harper's Magazine, New York, Vol. 194, May 1947, pp. 427– 432.

Describes the Peckham experiment in England, a family settlement and recreation center that emphasizes positive health.

PERROTT, GEORGE ST. J., and MOUNTIN, JOSEPH W. "Voluntary Health Insurance in Western Europe; Its Ori

gin and Place in a National Program." Public Health Reports, Washington, Vol. 62, May 23, 1947, pp. 733-767. 10 cents.

"Traces the origins and historical development of the voluntary health insurance systems from which the present programs have developed." The countries covered in the survey are England, France, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. STROW, CARL W. The Extent and Economic Cost of Disability. Chicago: Research Council for Economic Security, 1947. 12 pp. (Publication No. 23.)

U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS. Patients in Mental Institutions, 1944. Washington: U. S. Govt. Print. Off., 1947. 248 pp. 45 cents.

(Continued from page 2) Unemployment Benefits for Seamen With the signing of the Labor-Federal Security Appropriation Act, reconversion unemployment benefits became payable for a limited period (to June 30, 1949) for seamen who had Federal maritime service on vessels operated by the War Shipping Administration. The Seventy-ninth Congress established the program last August as title XIII of the Social Security Act Amendments of 1946 but adjourned without appropriating funds for its operation, and under the terms of the title no benefits could be paid for unemployment occurring before the date funds were made available for the purpose. The 1948 appropriation act includes $900,000 for

payment of these benefits, which will be paid by the State unemployment insurance agencies, acting as agents of the Federal Government. The unemployed maritime worker may file his claim in any State and receive benefits in the same amounts, on the same terms, and subject to the same conditions as if the employment had been subject to the State law.

An estimated 200,000 to 250,000 maritime workers have potential rights under the program. In the first 2 weeks of operation-that is, from July 8 to July 22-more than 4,300 maritime workers filed for benefits.

President's Proposal for USES Rejected

By concurrent resolution, Congress on June 30 rejected the President's Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1947,

which he had transmitted on May 1. In that plan the President had proposed that the U. S. Employment Service be made a permanent unit in the Department of Labor. "Policies and operations of the Employment Service," he said, "must be determined in relation to over-all labor standards, labor statistics, labor training, and labor law-on all of which the Labor Department is the center of specialized knowledge in the Government."

By the terms of the First War Powers Act, under which the USES was transferred from the Social Security Board to the War Manpower Commission in 1942 and then to the Department of Labor in 1945, the USES is scheduled to return to the Federal Security Agency, Social Security Administration, within 6 months of the official termination of the war.

(Continued from page 22) covered employment. Many of them became beneficiaries in 1945 or 1946 after the end of the war.

Under an insurance program that makes degree of attachment to covered employment the primary determinant of insured status, the presence of uninsured workers among persons employed in any year is not, in itself, particularly significant. It would probably call for serious considera

tion, however, if persons employed in covered jobs over a considerable period of time, or persons who have made substantial contributions to the insurance program, failed to gain insurance protection. Analysis of the employment and earnings of workers who received wage credits in 1944 shows that neither of these conditions could have characterized more than an extremely small proportion of the uninsured workers. Nevertheless,

since recency of covered employment and the pattern of such employment-that is, the extent to which wage credits earned are spread over the elapsed calendar quarters-are factors in determining insured status, the uninsured included a few workers whose wage credits, and therefore their contributions, were fairly substantial, while a few workers whose wage credits and contributions were relatively small were insured.

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1947

The Month of July

Business activity continued on a very high level through July, and there was no indication of an approaching downturn in nonagricultural employment. Despite the promising outlook for the immediate future, however, recent economic trends were of serious concern. Two developments were particularly disturbing: the new wave of rising pricesespecially in the group of "28 basic commodities," which are most sensitive to changes in business conditions and the decline in manufacturing production.

Even if these developments were purely temporary, they marked a slowing down in the progress of this country's economic readjustment. Continuation of this readjustment— liquidation of the postwar boom-implies falling prices and rising productivity of labor. Progress in this direction has been interrupted by a sudden rise in inflationary pressures bolstered by the increased demand for American products abroad, deteriorating outlook for the next harvest, international frictions, and the recent increase in wage rates in coal mining and the iron and steel industry. Temporary shortages of raw materials and parts contributed to those pressures by slowing down the flow of finished goods to consumers.

These new developments hardly affected the level of employment in July. Unemployment is now concentrated in industries that are passing through the process of liquidating their overexpansion at the beginning of reconversion. The sorest point has been the textile and clothing industries, especially those producing women's apparel, which have, however, already covered a large part of the road back to normalcy and are climbing out of the slump. Develop

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ments in the women's apparel industries are characteristic of what has occurred or is yet to take place in other industries.

Because of the rise in earnings of working women, these industries were fairly busy during the war. Their combined production index rose from 100 in 1939 and 1940 to 119 in 1942 and 143 in the following year. Under the impact of shortages of materials and labor, it dropped in 1944 and reached a low point of 94 in the second quarter of 1945. In March 1946, it soared to 193. That steep rise after the end of the war was to be anticipated, but production could not, of course, be maintained at that level. Because of the growth of pop

In this issue:

SOCIAL SECURITY IN REVIEW:

The month of July--
June in review..

EMPLOYMENT SECURITY:

State programs---

Number 8

ulation and higher level of consumption, the present demand for clothing may be 30 to 40 percent higher than before the war, but it could not be expected to remain 93 percent over the prewar level-which explains the contraction of those industries in the second half of the year. In December 1946 the combined index dropped to 111, and in many lines of production the output fell below the prewar mark. This reaction to the immediate postwar overexpansion was precipitated by the reluctance of consumers to pay prices which in their opinion were not justified by the quality of the product. The drop in production was only temporary, however. A revival developed in the early spring, and production indexes now are approaching the levels at which they can be stabilized. This type of readjustment,

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Nonfarm placements-

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OLD-AGE AND SURVIVORS INSURANCE:

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a large proportion go back to, or find, jobs before the end of the waiting period and others remain unemployed for relatively brief spells. Such a pattern of unemployment is not surprising in an economic system undergoing considerable readjustment on a high level of industrial activity.

June in Review

Civilian employment in June reached a total of more than 60 million, according to estimates of the Bureau of the Census, while the influx of boys and girls into the labor market for the vacation period caused unemployment to rise from 1,960,000 to 2,555,000. Large-scale shifts in the labor force and continuance of layoffs in some industries whose postwar production has not yet stabilized kept claims and benefits in the State unemployment insurance systems at comparatively high levels. Yet the seasonal revival apparently predominated over the large-scale lay-offs. The weekly number of both initial claims-adjusted for the beginning of new benefit years in several States-and of waiting-period claims declined slowly from the first half of May to early June in all parts of the country. The total number of continued claims rose from May to June, on the other hand. The increase was due partly to administrative factors but mainly to increases in about half

the Eastern States, especially those manufacturing nondurable goods. The increases were sufficient to more than offset declines in 34 other States. For the first time since July 1946 the average weekly number of beneficiaries went just above a million, and benefit expenditures rose for the fourth consecutive month, amounting to $73.6 million as against $72.3 million in May. In June 1946, on the other hand, disbursements totaled $93 million and payments went to a weekly average of 1,174,000 beneficiaries.

UNDER OLD-AGE AND SURVIVORS insurance, more than 1.8 million persons were receiving current payments at the end of June at a monthly rate of $35.1 million. A year earlier, at the end of the fiscal year 1945-46, monthly benefits of $28.2 million were being paid to 1.5 million beneficiaries.

Awards of monthly benefits during the second quarter of 1947 were 15 percent above the number in the preceding quarter but slightly less than in the second quarter of 1946. The decrease came in awards of primary and wife's benefits, since more survivor benefits of all types were awarded, particularly parent's benefits, for which eligibility requirements were liberalized under the 1946

amendments.

IN JUNE, for the first time in the history of the program, the number of children receiving aid to dependent children passed the million mark. Slight increases occurred also in the case loads of the other two assistance programs under the Social Security Act; the number of aged recipients reached an all-time high, and the number of persons receiving aid to the blind was almost at the September 1942 peak. The amount of payments under each of the three programs also increased slightly. The number of recipients and amount of payments under general assistance, on the other hand, continued their decline of the 2 preceding months. Payments under all four programs during June increased about $392,000 from the May total to more than $122 million; for June 1946, payments totaled $94.7 million.

IN THE LATE SPRING OF 1944, representatives of the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance called for a second time at the homes of a group of old-age and survivors insurance beneficiaries in St. Louis. This resurvey came 21⁄2 years after the first survey1 and approximately 4 years after the persons visited had become entitled to benefits. It was made to determine what changes had occurred in the resources of the aged and the widowed with the passage of time and how these groups had been affected by the heavy wartime demand for labor.

The information from the survey shows that, on the whole, the dollar incomes of beneficiaries were larger in 1944 than they had been in 1941. The various beneficiary types differed widely, however, in the extent to which their incomes had risen. The men with nonentitled wives and the widows with entitled children had the greatest proportionate gains in dollar income. The percentage increase in the median income of nonmarried men, female primary beneficiaries, and aged widows was smaller, but not as small as that for couples with the wife entitled. Despite the increases, the incomes of most of the beneficiary groups were still relatively low. Of the aged beneficiaries with no earnings in either survey year, the majority had about the same dollar incomes in each year.

The improvement in income occurred chiefly because of increased employment opportunities during the war; many had more earnings in the resurvey year. Independent income from such relatively permanent sources as rents, stocks, bonds, and other assets showed some increase on the average, but this change was only *Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, Analysis Division.

1 Summarized as part of the study of beneficiaries in 7 cities in the Bulletins of July 1943 and January, April, September, and November 1945. See also the Bulletin for January 1946, "Costs of Medical Care of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Beneficiaries in St. Louis and 12 Ohio Cities."

a minor factor in the gain in average total income. Public assistance payments were considerably higher in most instances, but, except for women primary beneficiaries, there was no substantial increase in the proportion receiving assistance. Gifts and allowances from servicemen and women also accounted for some of the total gain. Average income from all other sources, including old-age and survivors insurance, had declined somewhat.

The rise in the cost of living, however, had an important effect on the real income of the beneficiaries. When this change is taken into account, from a third to two-thirds of the beneficiary groups of the several types were in less favorable economic circumstances in the resurvey year than they had been in 1941. Real incomes were larger, nevertheless, for half or more of two groups-the men with nonentitled wives and the widows with entitled children. Roughly a fourth of the beneficiaries of other types had higher real incomes.

Almost three-fourths of the aged widows resurveyed in St. Louis and almost half the beneficiaries of each of the other types shared households with relatives. Many of these beneficiaries probably benefited materially from the increases in the incomes of the relatives. It was found, however, that while a few beneficiary groups had combined households with relatives in the period between the first and second surveys, a larger number had dissolved such joint living arrangements.

The two beneficiary types with the largest average increase in income (men with nonentitled wives and widows with children) apparently had been able, on the average, to reduce their debts or to save a little during the intervening period. For beneficiaries of other types, on the average, the net worth was no higher, and it was possibly lower, than at the time of the first interview if unrealized profits are discounted.

The major changes in the resources

of these beneficiaries probably were peculiar to a period of industrial expansion characterized by full employment. In a period of stable or declining employment, the changes in the circumstances of the beneficiaries no doubt would have been considerably different. At the time of the second interviews, held about a year before the surrender of Germany, some aged persons who had been working were already being separated from employment, while others were complaining that the work they did was too hard for them; some said they continued to work because they needed the money, and others only because their needed employers their services. Nearly two-thirds of the aged primary beneficiaries, however, did not work or, if they worked, earned no more than $150 during the year.

Under conditions of moderate or large-scale unemployment, it is likely that, on the average, the income of aged beneficiaries from earnings would decline over a 22-year period. In such circumstances, also, it is likely that a much larger number would have applied for public assistance. In a period of industrial stability or contraction, some assets would have had a lower market value and brought a smaller income return than under wartime conditions. Possibly, however, the proportion of beneficiaries living with relatives would not have Some "doubeen widely different.

bling up" occurred in the wartime period of housing shortage as well as in the less prosperous year of 1941. Similarly, other factors affecting the proportion of beneficiaries living with relatives, such as the departure of sons and daughters for military service or war employment, and the return home of daughters in the absence of husbands, tended to offset each other.

The first St. Louis survey, made in November and December 1941, included 804 beneficiaries of the major benefit types who were awarded benefits in 1940. The original sample covered about half the beneficiary groups in St. Louis who were awarded benefits in 1940. In the resurvey, which commenced in May 1944, the group comprised as many of the 804 beneficiary groups as were currently entitled to benefits and could be interviewed in St. Louis. In all, 301 of the beneficiary groups covered in the first survey were not revisited or for various other reasons have been omitted from the present analysis (table 1). Of the original 804 beneficiary groups, 8 percent were not interviewed a second time because they were away from the city, either permanently or temporarily, or because the primary beneficiary or widow was too ill to be interviewed, although payments were still being made on the account. Another 3 percent of the beneficiaries either refused information or gave information inadequate for analysis. In the case of 12 percent of the bene

2 See the Bulletin, July 1943, for a discussion of the selection of the sample.

ficiary groups, benefits had been terminated either because the beneficiary interviewed in 1941 had died leaving no entitled survivor or because a

last or only beneficiary child had attained age 18. In 15 percent of the cases the composition of the beneficiary group had changed so as to