TABLE 2.-Estimated population as of July 1, 1958, for use in computing proportion of population receiving assistance (recipient rates) for June 1958-Con.

1 Estimates for States projected from data for July 1957 from Bureau of the Census (Release P-25, No. 168) by distributing among States on the basis indicated below the increase in population for the continental United States as projected from unpublished estimates by the Bureau of the Census for June 1958. Data for individual States were estimated as follows:

State's population July 1957+(change in continental U.S. population April 1950-July 1958

change in State's population April 1950-July 1959

continental U.S. population July 1957-July 1958

X change in

States showing a decrease April 1950-July 1957 were assumed to have no change during the year and data for these States were excluded from U.S. totals in above formula. Estimates for Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico projected from census data for July 1957 as follows:

Population July 1957+

change April 1950-July 1957 X change in continental United States July 1957-July 19581
change in continental United States April 1950-July 1958.

Estimate for Virgin Islands by the Bureau of Public Assistance.

2 Estimates for States projected from data for July 1956 from the Bureau of the Census (Release P-25, No. 172) by distributing among States the estimated increase in age group for continental United States from July 1959-July 1958, as projected from Bureau of the Census estimates for June 1958. Methodology comparable to that given in footnote 1.

Estimates for Hawaii and Puerto Rico projected from census estimates for July 1956; methodology comparable to that described in footnote 1 for these jurisdictions. Estimates for Alaska and Virgin Islands by the Bureau of Public Assistance.

3 Col. 1-col. 3.

4 Col. 1-col. 2-col. 3.

Col. 1-col. 2.

TABLE 3.-Public assistance in the United States, by month, March 1958-March 1959 [Except for general assistance, includes vendor payments for medical care and cases receiving only such payments]

TABLE 4.-Old-age assistance: Recipients and payments to recipients, by State, March 19591

[Includes vendor payments for medical care and cases receiving only such payments]

1 For definition of terms see the Bulletin, October 1957, p. 18. All data subject to revision. Includes 4,004 recipients aged 60-64 in Colorado and payments of $354,219 to these recipients. Such payments were made without Federal participation.

Based on totals excluding data for Illinois. See footnote 6.

In addition, supplemental payments of $19,952 from general assistance funds were made to 88 recipients. Decrease of less than 0.05 percent.

Data understated because of administrative change in the processing of payments.

7 Increase of less than 0.05 percent.

SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS

Professor COHEN. Now, we will turn to the question for a moment of social security benefits.

Social security benefits at the present time are averaging about $72 per month. The amount is slightly higher, $82 a month, for

people who are just newly coming on to the social security rolls, reflecting the somewhat higher incomes of recent years. For aged married couples, about half of all of the aged on social security receive less than $125 a month.

If you can turn to chart 4 (p. 18), I will just point out the few relative facts in it.

For the aged couples whom I was just discussing on social security, about 30 percent of them receive between $50 and $100 a month. In other words, 30 percent of the aged couples on social security get less than $100 a month. Another 40 percent get between $100 and $150 a month, and only about 30 percent get between $150 and $175 a month. So a large proportion of these aged couples, unless they happen to have a private pension or other sources of income, which many do not, have to live entirely on their social security.

The same is true in the same fashion about the single individuals. They may be single or married but only one of them is receiving a benefit in this group. But I would like to point out what I said earlier, that among the aged people, the group that is probably the worse off are the aged widows. There are about 14 million aged widows on social security. You might say these are the favored ones; these are the ones who did get on social security. Of that group, nearly 40 percent get between $33 a month and $50 a month. Another 40 percent get between $50 and $70 a month, which means that about 80 percent of the widows get less than $70 per month. The other remaining group get between $70 and $82.

Now let us look at the matter of taking all of the income of these people, that is, those who are on social security, and taking all their money retirement income (chart 5, p. 19). The concept here is independent money, retirement money, which means regular money income. This does not include unexpected contributions of relatives or friends. Only the pension or regular money income of all sorts, public or private, that they receive.

This indicates that for last year, around a third of all of the married couples on social security had a total independent money retirement income of less than $1,200 a year. That means that a third of them had less than an average of $100 a month from all regular

sources.

Taking $1,500 as your base, 46 percent had less than $1,500. If we were to take $1,800 as a base, which is $150 a month on the average, 61 percent of the aged married couples receiving social security had a total annual income of less than $1,800 a year, and so on for these other figures.

This indicates of course that a large number of aged people have to live on a very, very modest and careful budgeting of income.

Senator MCNAMARA. Does that chart include social security payments, too?

Professor COHEN. Yes, Senator. It includes social security, public pensions, railroad retirement, civil service, private pensions, any regular retirement income, and other regular income; and that is the total.