The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions? Mr. Knox? Mr. Knox. Mr. Secretary, in following the interrogation by Mr. Curtis on page 14 of your statement which has reference to the work relief program, this has been instituted, I understand, in many of our cities throughout the country. Your statement reads:

We believe that if the Federal Government is to participate in such payments there must be conditions in the State's plan which assure that the prevailing wage will be paid.

Also then you mention that you believe health and safety standards should be observed. In the bill which has been introduced, H.R. 10032, does this bill provide that unless the States adopt all of the Federal standards the States will not be able to receive Federal funds?

Secretary RIBICOFF. That is correct. You have now-and you might be interested-13 States that have extended their aid to dependent children programs to include families in need because the parent is unemployed have worked relief programs. There are in these States 268 local agencies. That would include a county or city that has a work relief program.

As of September 1961, the number of people assigned to these projects was 11,270. I believe in people working for what they get. I think that there could be nothing more tragic than a person who wants to work not being able to work. One of the things that has held back work programs in the States and the communities is a failure of the Federal Government to participate in payments to welfare recipients, because work programs now are all local or State money, so consequently if you had a relief check of $100 and the person did not work, then the Federal Government, let us say, would contribute $50-let's make it simple-and the State would contribute $50.

However, if the State carried out a work program the State would pay the whole $100. Many of these work programs that the States have carried out are not projects that the State could not get along without and they would rather receive the Federal contribution.

Philosophically, as far as I am concerned, Mr. Knox, I would much prefer the Federal Government paying $50 toward useful work than to pay $50 to a man who sits on the back porch staring vacantly into space, and we estimate that this will not cost any additional money.

I mean this is one part of the program for which we have not budgeted any extra funds because what we anticipate will be happening is that the States and localities will be substituting work relief programs for the equivalent sums that are being paid for relief without requiring any extra Federal dollars.

I think that we should encourage getting people off of relief doing nothing and to the fullest extent possible having them do some useful work, learning a trade or a vocation, and I have been a strong advocate of this type of program.

Mr. KNOX. I completely agree that if the recipients of welfare are able to work, then they certainly should be required to work if the work is available for them to do. It is this question about the Federal standards. What about State standards? Are we going to ignore State standards as far as safety, and wage scales, and so on are con

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cerned, or what are we going to do with them? Are we going to recognize them as a part of the overall program?

Secretary RIBICOFF. Mr. Knox, we do not say that they are all Federal standards. On page 28 of the bill it reads:

* provisions which, in the judgment of the Secretary, provide reasonable assurance that

(A) appropriate standards for health and safety and other conditions of work of such relatives performing such work are established and maintained;

Not Federal standards. I do not intend to tell every community and every State what Federal health standards they shall have.

I will be more than pleased to accept the health standards that prevail in the local community. Then the bill says:

(B) payments for such work are at rates not less than the minimum rate (if any) provided by or under State law and not less than the rates prevailing on similar work in the community.

I was very careful to have that put in because I do not intend if there is no minimum standard of wages in the State that the Federal Government is going to enforce a minimum wage standard, but if a State has a minimum wage standard, I think it ought to be at the minimum State standard.

I have tried in almost everything I have presented to this committee and the Congress that comes out of this Department to carefully scrutinize and completely protect what I consider State's rights because I believe in the Federal Government encroaching as little as possible upon our States, and to the extent that I help devise some of these programs or consult with this committee in working them out. I think you will always find me most zealous in protecting States' rights and State standards.

Mr. KNOX. I might say, Mr. Secretary, that we are most happy that we have your statement on the record. One year ago I was approached relative to Federal payments to the Michigan State Welfare Department's participation in Federal funds and it was caused mostly by conflict of State law and your administrative rulings, and the information that came to me was that your Department had informed the welfare department of the State of Michigan that unless they conformed there would be no further Federal matching funds available to the State of Michigan.

Does this entire proposal which is recommended by your Department, the bill which we will have under consideration, put into effect the approximate statement which I have made in regard to all of the provisions of this bill, that they must conform or you are going to cut the funds off?

Secretary RIBICOFF. I would say when you say they must conform, you make the law, and if the law is enacted the failure to conform would make the State open to having its funds cut off.

I am recalling the incident of Michigan. This was a similar situation that took place in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, and Virginia. You may recall that my predecessor, Secretary Flemming, in January before I took office, handed down a ruling on the "suitable home" provision in which he held, arising out of a Louisiana situation, that a State which failed to make adequate provision and cut off assistance to any one family would place all their funds in jeopardy.

Out of this ruling came our "suitable home" provision that Congress wrote into the law which provided that the Federal Government would contribute to foster home care and that if a home were unsuitable for a child, this child could by court order be placed into a foster home and Federal funds will be made available.

We are now asking that this be made permanent. We are recommending further extension of this provision as a result of the experience. In my study of this problem that prevailed in the States of Michigan, and Mississippi, and Arkansas, and Louisiana, I recognized that with respect to many of these unsuitable homes you cannot find foster homes to take care of the children, and therefore we would allow Federal payments in institutions if they are proper to take care of the children; because the problem that you raise, and again going back to your first question, is the Federal Government acting with a heavy hand, I do not want the Federal Government acting with a heavy hand.

When anyone raises a problem as far as I am concerned I want to look at it and give it a fresh point of view. Congressman Curtis raises a point of view about Missouri and Pennsylvania. He is entitled to have that looked into.

I think on the first or second day that I was Secretary I was waited upon by Representatives of Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana who explained their problem to me, and I think your welfare commissioner came down from Michigan and explained his problem to me. Out of the explanation of their problem came the amendments that were written into the law, and I think that what we are trying to do is make these amendments permanent now, Mr. Knox.

Mr. KNOX. Mr. Secretary, it was my understanding that noncompliance with the administrative ruling of your Department as far as the State of Michigan was concerned was not arbitrary on the part of the welfare director, but was because of a conflict in State law. Is that not true?

Secretary RIBICOFF. That is correct, but what you talk about today, Mr. Knox, is what has been in the Federal law since 1935.

In other words, when the social security law was written and as it has been subsequently amended, there was always the provision that the failure of the State to comply would authorize the cutting off of funds. There is always careful consultation. The law has been in effect since 1935 and Mr. Cohen tells me that calling into noncompliance and cutting off the State funds took place in one State in 25 years, and that was in 1938 in Ohio.

I have found as a Governor that the regional representatives of the Department would visit the welfare department. They would come up and talk with me when problems and conflicts arose and we always tried to straighten them out, and I am sure this kind of relationship prevails at the present time.

I think generally you will find that there is very good comity between the States and the Federal Government on the welfare program and we find very few complaints. I have received very few complaints about any conflict between the States and the Federal Government on this particular provision. The only complaint that I received was when we first came to office on the Flemming ruling on suitable homes, and we tried to correct this situation in the law that was written last year.

Mr. KNOX. What is the status at the present time of Michigan's participation? Is there a cutoff date?

Secretary RIBICOFF. Michigan has until September 1, 1962, to conform their law to the Federal standards, and this was a cutoff date that the Congress wrote in the law, in the social security amendments of last year.

Of course, we now seek to make these provisions permanent on suitable homes and foster care, and, of course, as far as Michigan is concerned it has until September 1, 1962, to conform its law; but with the flexibility we now give you in this law, I do not believe you will find any difficulty with Michigan. Mr. Cohen is a professor at the University of Michigan on leave and he might be very familiar with the Michigan situation.

Would you care to explain to Mr. Knox the Michigan situation from your knowledge of Michigan, Mr. Cohen?

Mr. COHEN. It does require, as I understand now, since the ruling of the Attorney General, Michigan to have an amendment to its law to comply with the Flemming ruling; and the legislation that the Secretary has referred to that was passed last year gave the State of Michigan until September 1, 1962, to comply with the Flemming ruling with respect to this "suitable home" provision. That is the only provision that was in dispute, Mr. Knox.

Mr. KNOX. To your knowledge, Mr. Cohen, and I think you are quite familiar with the welfare department's operation in the State of Michigan, do you feel that the State of Michigan has been negligent in its duty to provide the necessary homes for children, that they should be removed from one home to another because of unwedded mothers, and what have you?

Mr. COHEN. I would not want to say the State was negligent, but there was a very peculiar situation there which grew out of the fact that the aid-to-dependent-children program was a State-administered program with no local funds at all, purely State and Federal funds, while the direct relief program was local and State funds, and under the Michigan practice, as I recall it, when a home was determined unsuitable with respect to the ADC program, they merely referred the case to the local welfare department for general assistance.

However, there was no assurance that if the children were kept in the home they would continue to receive assistance, and that was in violation of the Flemming ruling; so it would require a change in the Michigan law to see that if the children were kept in the home they did receive assistance.

Mr. KNOX. Well, of course in the Secretary's early statement he confirmed my thinking as far as States rights are concerned that the Federal Government should never become the domineering factor, and of course if this is going to be necessary it means that the State legislature of Michigan is going to be mandated by the Federal rulings or Federal law, that it must amend their State laws to conform with Federal rulings and also law.

I am of the opinion that if this is caused mostly by a ruling of Mr. Flemming, who was your predecessor, another look should be taken in order to preserve States rights, unless the State itself is not doing a job that we can call commendable as far as the care of the individual is concerned.