Alaska, and Puerto Rico. New classrooms added, according to the Office of Education, will house 350,000 children.

The third development-although it did not result in actual legislative proposals until after the close of the fiscal year-was an intensive study to carry out the recommendation of the President in his State of the Union Message, for prompt extension of the old-age and survivors insurance program to include many millions of Americans not covered under existing law. As an initial step, the Secretary sought the advice of a group of consultants on social security with wide experience in the fields of banking, insurance, education, social work, farm and labor organizations, and industry.1

This group devoted the spring of 1953 to a careful study of a number of possible ways in which old-age and survivors insurance coverage could be extended to additional workers. Their recommendations were contained in a report transmitted to the Secretary near the close of the fiscal year. Subsequently, at the request of the President, the views of the consultants were embodied in a bill submitted to the Congress shortly after the close of the fiscal year.

An important milestone in national progress in medical research was passed with the completion of the Clinical Center at the Public Health Service's National Institutes of Health. It was constructed to serve as a center of cooperation between the clinician-the bedside physician-and the laboratory investigator.

The Clinical Center is in fact a combined hospital-laboratory to serve physicians and patients throughout the Nation and to forward research in cancer, mental illness, arthritis, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses. With facilities for 500 patients-who will be admitted from all parts of the country on the basis of the significance of their illness to the Nation as a whole, the Center offers promise of new knowledge that can be turned to the early prevention and control of the most hazardous and least understood diseases that attack the people of the Nation.

The Center was dedicated by the Secretary on July 2, 1953, 2 days after the close of the fiscal year, and admitted its first patients 4 days later.

1 Reinhard A. Hohaus, New York, N. Y., Vice President and Chief Actuary, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Chairman; Thomas H. Beacom, Chicago, Ill., Vice President in Charge of Trusts, First National Bank of Chicago; Eveline M. Burns, New York, N. Y., Economist and Professor of Social Work, New York School of Social Work, Columbia University; Robert P. Burroughs, Manchester, N. H., President and Treasurer of R. P. Burroughs Company, Pension and Profit Sharing Plans; Leonard J. Calhoun, Washington, D. C., Attorney-at-law; Nelson H. Cruikshank, Washington, D. C., Director of Social In. surance Activities, American Federation of Labor; Wallis B. Dunckel, New York, N. Y., Vice President, Bankers Trust Company; Loula Dunn, Chicago, Ill., Director, American Public Welfare Association; Katherine Ellickson, Washington, D. C., Secretary, Social Security Committee, Congress of Industrial Organizations; Hugh F. Hall, Washington, D. C., American Farm Bureau Federation; Lloyd C. Halvorson, Washington, D. C., The National Grange; and A. D. Marshall, Schenectady, N. Y., Manager of Employee Benefits, General Electric Company.

For a delineation of the recommendations, see pp. 14-29, "Old-Age and Survivors Insurance."

As is indicated in the report of the Public Health Service one of the outstanding achievements of the country during the last half century has been the lengthening of the life span from 47.3 to 68.5 years. The inevitable result has been a consistent expansion of the number and proportion of older people in our population. While the population of the country has doubled within the past 50 years, the number of men and women between the ages of 45 and 65 has trebled. traples The number who are 65 or older has quadrupled; and today there are approximately 13.5 million men and women who are beyond 65.

To study, report on, and work with the States on matters associated with the problem, the Department maintains, in the Office of the Secretary, a Committee on Aging and Geriatrics. In addition to developing and disseminating information, the Committee seeks to aid in stimulating the development of public and private services for older people.

During the year, for example, a conference of State commissions and committees on the aging was held. Delegates from 15 State agencies took part officially and the Governors of 18 other States sent observers to the conference.

Another Departmental responsibility which should be mentioned concerns the use of surplus property belonging to the Federal Government.

The various laws relating to the disposal of such property assign three major responsibilities to this Department. They are: allocation of surplus personal property to the States for distribution to educational and public health institutions; arrangements for the disposal of surplus real property for education and public health purposes; and protecting the Federal interest by ensuring that surplus property that is supplied to the States is properly used and may be recovered for use during national emergencies.

During fiscal 1953, surplus personal property with an original acquisition value of $63 million was allocated to State agencies for distribution. New transfers of real property were made to 105 such institutions which acquired 233 buildings and 369 acres of land valued at almost $2.9 million.

The surplus property program of the Department also supervised the return of real property valued at $50 million that had previously been transferred to the States for educational or public health use. Since the properties were required for permanent Federal use, revestment of title in the Federal Government was obtained in the amount of $20 million.

Machine tools previously donated to educational institutions were returned to defense production at savings of $4.5 million. Other general items of personal property, costing $2 million, were returned from institutions and placed in defense use. The Department of

Defense was also notified of the availability of electronic equipment valued at almost $2.5 million. In the course of these activities, cash receipts totaling $1.8 million were deposited with the Treasurer of the United States.

One of the duties of the Department is to assist the Department of State when an expert knowledge of the fields of health, education, or welfare is required in the development of the foreign policy of the United States. The Department is also a participant in the day-to-day work of the United Nations; in the bilateral programs of foreign technical assistance and exchange of persons supervised by the Department of State; and in the programs of the Foreign Operations Administration in health, education, and welfare.

For the Secretary of State, the Department drafts "position papers" in the fields of its special competence, to serve as guide lines in determining the official attitude of our Government regarding these matters. Senior officials of the Department frequently are appointed by the President to represent the United States at important meetings of international organizations, while others serve in an expert capacity on technical committees of the United Nations, its specialized agencies, and various regional international organizations.

The Department cooperates in developing the health, education, and welfare aspects of the technical assistance programs in 34 of the free nations to which the United States is extending foreign aid. To this end, 426 technicians were recruited during the year for foreign assignments. Through its appropriate constituents, the Department also supervised the programs of approximately 205 United Nations Fellows who were sent to the United States for study and training during the fiscal year. All told, approximately 3,500 foreign visitors received training planned and supervised by the Department.

The foregoing pages have consisted of a description of certain highlights in the work of the Department during fiscal year 1953. The following pages contain the reports of the major sub-divisions and other institutions over which the Department exercises either direct supervision or has responsibilities in connection with their administration.

Taken together, they represent a report, reasonably detailed, of the the work of the Federal Government as authorized by the Congress in the important fields of health, education, and welfare.

Their continuing objective, in essence, is the great and humane task of helping the American people help themselves toward a healthier, increasingly more enlightened, and more secure world for themselves and, in this measure, for mankind.

Social Security
Administration

Social Security in 1953

DURING THE PAST YEAR the social security program has continued to grow and to provide protection and benefits to increasing numbers of people. Early in his administration, President Eisenhower reaffirmed his belief in the value and general acceptance of contributory social insurance as the basic program through which the people of this country can together provide for their own retirement income and the support of their dependents. The Social Security Administration has continued to review the operations of the existing social security programs and to appraise the effectiveness with which they are achieving their goal.

Old-age and survivors insurance has, from the beginning, been recognized as the basic income-maintenance program for aged persons and for orphans and their widowed mothers. Because it provides only for those who have had an opportunity to work in covered employment, and because, up to the present time, coverage has not extended to all employments, the program has only gradually begun to reveal its full potential effect.

The number of persons receiving old-age and survivors insurance benefits has increased from fewer than 250,000 at the end of 1940, the year benefits first became payable, to about 5.6 million in June 1953. Of these, 1.3 million were children and their mothers. Since 1944 the number of orphans receiving survivor insurance benefits has been larger than the number receiving public assistance through the program for aid to dependent children. Life insurance protection under the old-age and survivors insurance program is acquired after a relatively short period (a year and a half) in covered employment. This

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part of the program, therefore, very quickly became effective for workers in the industries covered.

Except for workers already close to or past age 65 at the time the program was started (or when coverage became effective for additional employments at the beginning of 1951), the eligibility requirements for old-age benefits call for substantial periods of covered employment and contributions. Many persons still living had already retired when the program began or had depended on the earnings of persons already out of the labor force. The number of aged persons receiving old-age and survivors insurance benefits first exceeded the number on old-age assistance in February 1951. Since that time the insurance program has continued to grow, and the number receiving old-age assistance has declined slightly. As a result, by June 1953, 32 percent of the aged population were being supported wholly or partly by old-age and survivors insurance while less than 20 percent were receiving assistance. About 3 percent were getting both insurance benefits and supplementary assistance payments.

Chart 1.-WHERE AGED PERSONS GET THEIR CASH INCOME

Percent of persons 65 years and over with income from specified sources, December 1952

1 Some get income from more than one source; 4.5 percent also get income from private pension plans.

2 Includes wives of employed persons.

• Includes railroad retirement, government employee retirement, and veterans compensation and pension programs.

Represents persons with income from investments and/or cash Income from children and other relatives, and those with no cash income at all.