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those which may create deterrents to participation in the program for many current and potential elderly Food Stamp recipients. Provisions which affect the elderly.-The new law will:

-Require no less than 50 cents per person per month or 30 percent of the household's income, as payment in order to participate in the Food Stamp program.

-Direct the Secretary of Agriculture in consultation with the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, to establish new uniform national standards of eligibility for participation in the program, including income limitations, and liquid or nonliquid asset limitations for those persons not on welfare (under the Food Stamp Act of 1964, States set their own standards). -Expand the Food Stamp program to permit persons 60 years of age or older who are nonambulatory, homebound or feeble, to use Food Stamps to purchase meals delivered to them by nonprofit organizations or local government agencies. The preparing agencies or organizations cannot utilize federally donated foods (Commodity Food program) for this purpose, however. -Permit the issuance of free Food Stamps to households or individuals with incomes below the poverty level. For example, a four-person household with an income of less than $30 a month will be eligible for free Food Stamps.

-Deny Food Stamps to an otherwise eligible household, between the ages of 18 and 65 (mothers with dependent children and students excepted), who fail to register for or accept employment at public work at not less than the applicable State or Federal minimum wage, or $1.30 an hour if there is no applicable minimum wage. There is a distinct possibility that a number of these provisions may have serious implications for the nutrition. of the elderly. Indeed, the expansionary measure dealing with home-delivered meals may put restrictions on those community dining programs that also deliver a number of hot meals to the homebound (most of the Title IV Nutrition project include a home-delivered meals component), because they will still be able to utilize certain commodity foods for the meals served in a group setting, but will not be allowed to use those foods for the meals prepared for home delivery. About 4 percent of older Americans are homebound at any one time, and for these people, the home-delivery of meals can be a great benefit.

The earlier Senate-passed measure, S. 2547 23, authorized elderly individuals to exchange Food Stamps for meals prepared and served, in either group settings or delivered to their homes, if they did not have cooking facilities, or reasonable access to such facilities; or if they were homebound, feeble or otherwise disabled.

In view of the recommendation of the President's Task Force on the Aging related to meals served in a group setting for the elderly: and the Administration's proposal which would implement such a program on a national scale, it would appear that allowing older Americans to exchange Food Stamps for such meal service is a necessary addition to the Food Stamp program-and one that is imperative to the health and well being of older Americans.

23 See Developments in Aging 1969, pp. 53-54, for discussion of S. 2547.

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In an attempt to determine the impact of the new law on the elderly, the Committee on Aging prepared a survey questionnaire which was mailed to all State Commissions on Aging throughout

the Nation.

D. SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM: MASSACHUSETTS

Twenty-two municipalities in Massachusetts are now participating in a program which provides a noon meal in schools to low-income elderly over 59 years old. The conditions:

1. The charge to each person for each lunch shall not exceed 50 cents.

2. Lunches shall meet State nutritional standards, and procedures shall be approved by the Commonwealth Bureau on Aging and the Commonwealth Bureau of Nutrition.

Mr. John C. Stalker, Director of the Massachusetts Division of School Facilities and Related Services, has informed this Committee that 14 applications, now on file, cannot be processed because of lack of funds. At least 100 additional communities have expressed an interest in the program.

Begun on a pilot basis with 10 communities in 1967, the project now serves more than 1,600 meals daily.24

For text of 1970 legislation authorizing broadening of the program see appendix 5, item 2, p. 326.

Senator EAGLETON. Our next witness will be Mr. Nelson Cruikshank representing the National Council of Senior Citizens.

I might say-and this would apply to all the witnesses that the prepared statement of each witness will, of course, be considered by the subcommittee and made a part of the record of these hearings. In the interest of time, I would be most appreciative if those witnesses who have a prepared statement, requiring longer than 10 minutes, to read would summarize or highlight the views contained in their statements, bearing in mind the statement in its entirety will be made a part of the record.

Without any further comments, we will ask Mr. Nelson Cruikshank to come forward, representing the National Council of Senior Citizens. STATEMENT OF NELSON H. CRUIKSHANK, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF SENIOR CITIZENS, ACCOMPANIED BY MISS DOROTHY MCCAMMAN

Mr. CRUIKSHANK. Mr. Chairman, my name is Nelson H. Cruikshank. I am the president of the National Council of Senior Citizens. I am happy to be here and, with your permission, to be accompanied by our consultant, Miss Dorothy McCamman.

I am here today as the representative of the more than 3 million members of the affiliated organizations of the National Council of Senior Citizens.

I am also happy to note the interest in the work of this committee on the problems of the aged. It is heartening to older Americans everywhere to note that a committee and if I may say so, a subcommittee headed by such a young Senator-is taking an interest in the problems, the serious problems that confront older Americans today.

As you indicated in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, I will submit my full statement for the record; and while I believe I am talking on two bills, I think I can keep within the 10-minute time limit, understanding the pressures of time that you are operating under. The subject of the hearings today which you have called, research into the causes of aging in humans and the need to make available to the elderly nutritious meals at prices they can afford, are certainly among the top interests of the older Americans today. Certainly more intensive research and better nutrition are essential to elimination of the disabilities and ill health that are so often associated with the process of aging.

The national council is wholeheartedly in support of your bill, S. 887, to provide the establishment of a National Institute of Gerontology as a part of the National Institutes of Health. This we feel is long overdue; and, at the same time, one of the best investments the country could make.

The amounts invested in research on aging could be expected to yield untold dividends in improved health and greater self-reliance, conserving human resources as well as saving countless dollars now spent on medical care and long-term institutional care. Dr. Marott Sinex, who I note is another witness this morning, chairman of the department of biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, tells us that a single breakthrough in the delay of senile dementia might save over a billion dollars a year in addition to immeasurable

human anguish that would be avoided. Yet we have barely begun the research that could lead to this breakthrough-that could provide solutions once we have learned why some individuals are old at 50 and others retain mental and physical vigor long after 80.

As the full statement indicates and spells out in some detail, the existing efforts are woefully inadequate, and we note that there has been a gradual slippage in the budget figures, the amounts of money budgeted in this field. And when you take the absolute amounts and apply the effect of inflation to them, it amounts to about a 20-percent cutback in the amounts available for this important work. This at the time, as you noted in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, when the problems of the aging are increasing in amount and intensity.

The sheer numbers alone in our growing aged population would point to an expansion in the training in gerontology and in the study; but in spite of the need for expansion, there has been a gradual decline. These are the important facts to be cited, I think, in this respect:

In the decade 1960-70, the number of aged 65 and older increased at a faster rate than the younger segment of the population, a rise of over 21 percent as against a general expansion of 12 percent.

Of the population over age 65, the oldest group grew at a faster rate than the younger elderly. Over the decade, the increase in those who had passed their 75th birthday was over 37 percent, almost three times the incerase of 13.1 percent for those aged 65 to 74.

In the particularly distressed segment of this distressed segment of the population are the older women who already greatly outnumber the men 65 or over, because their number increased at an even faster rate than the men. At the present time in our population there are 139 women over 65 for every 100 men, a marked increase from the figures of a decade earlier.

It is also noted that, in the studies of economic needs, this segment of the population increasing faster than any other is the one most depressed economically.

So all of these problems are aggravated for this particular segment of our population.

The administration opposed a special institute on the ground that it was a categorical approach focusing on the needs of the aged and their problems. We feel that while there are arguments against a categorical approach to these problems, that this is a kind of long-range, theoretical position to take, and when you insist, as the administration does, that these special studies and the need for a special institute is not acute because they are going to go into a broad across-the-board study of needs, it is but a way of putting off action that is needed right now in favor of some kind of idealistic across-the-board approach when the need is expanding greatly and is becoming more acute every day in this category, and our feeling is if you have a category of the population that can indicate such acute needs, there is an argument for a categorical approach at least until the time when the idealistic acrossthe-board approach is reached.

We feel also that S. 1925, introduced by the chairman of this overall committee, Senator Williams, presents another useful approach. We

would hope, therefore, that your subcommittee would be able to merge the features of the two bills and thus ease the process of enactment.

Specifically, the seven-member Aging Research Commission to be established by S. 1925 might well be the advisory council proposed under S. 887, with its first charge an early report on an overall plan and research priorities.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize our support of these bills. May I emphasize them on a light note, Senator Eagleton?

In recently talking to an old lady who was celebrating her 85th birthday and remarking that it was so wonderful that medical science had given her the gift of an additional 20 years of life, she replied with a snort that it would be great if medical science would add 20 years to the age between 39 and 40.

This is a light note, but there is a strong element of truth in this because if the quality of life can be extended as well as the quantity of life, it would almost have that effect.

Let me now turn to S. 1163, introduced by Senator Kennedy on March 10 of this year.

We note that it has strong and broad bipartisan support of nearly 20 Senators. I am happy to note the cosponsors are Senators especially aware of the needs of our older people and actively working to improve their lot. To name just three: yourself, Senator Eagleton, Senator Church, chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, and Senator Williams, formerly chairman of that committee.

I need not take your time to repeat all the documentation of the lowincome position of our older population that makes so essential a program of low-cost meals. Nor do I need to detail the success story of the demonstration programs that have been carried out over the last 3 years. I should like instead to concentrate on the reason for acting now to translate these experimental projects to a continuing national program to provide older people with low-cost meals, nutrition training, and opportunity for social contacts.

We in the national council are perhaps as vocal as any other group in the country in pointing out the economic needs of the older people; but we are also aware that the economic needs are not the only needs. If we could meet today the economic needs of the older people, they would still be left with very serious nutritional needs, odd as that may seem; and they also would be left with very serious needs for social contacts and all that goes with it.

The nutrition program meets part of this economic need. It meets it in two ways: It supplements the nutritional needs of the people who share in the meals that are provided. It supplements the economic needs of those who prepare the meals and those who are trained to prepare and serve the meals. And it meets a very important social need of people who too often eat their meals-and eating should be a social function as well as just a biological function-in loneliness and despair.

This is not in my prepared statement, but I had the experience recently of talking to a very noted physician, the head of a very large hospital in New York, who found his own mother in a declining state of health. He gave her a series of examinations, only to his own