I think you can multiply that hundreds of thousands of times in our city, in every city in the United States.

There are people who have the finest experience that I have seen. To send for a retired man or a woman and to tell him you have a job for him to do, they just love that. They bloom up immediately. They change.

Something happens to them because they no longer write themselves off, and I think, today, there is too much writing off of the senior citizens in our entire country and in our community, and not enough appreciation that they have a great, contribution to make to our society and to our people.

I think that the Congress can lead the way in helping us do that. SENIOR CITIZENS: "MOST VALUABLE AND PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYEES"

I want to assure you I will put as many senior citizens to work as I can, because I find them to be the most valuable and productive employees. You never have to worry about senior citizens being on time or being unwilling to stay over a little.

This is something that they have been trained all their lives to do. Senator RANDOLPH. We have those people who do not believe in flexibility of retirement. They think that it is necessary to have mandatory retirement age so that the younger people will have an opportunity for work.

Now, What do you think about that?

Mayor DALEY. I think of the story Danny Thomas tells. When he was 16 or 17 someone died, and they said, "How old was he, 45? What does he want to do, live forever?"

The people who are young today will be senior citizens tomorrow, and the people must recognize that it is not just the age that you are in that will determine that policy.

We have made a mistake. Retirement was fixed when expectation of your life and my life was about 45. Now it is 70 or 72, and the same rules and the same regulations should not exist, and that is why I say to you, the Federal Government has to take the lead, and I hope they will.

Senator RANDOLPH. Mayor, you know I authored the constitutional amendment for the 18-year-old voting, so I believe in young people. Mayor DALEY. We all do.

Senator RANDOLPH. I believe we start them earlier than we used to in the voting process. By the same thinking, we must include the older people longer, those who have the desire.

Mayor DALEY. Senator, the great productivity of America, which has been standing still in the last 10 years should take its place again. We are the greatest businessmen. We can provide enough employment for all of the people, young and old, in our society, if we get a change in the attitude of the people. Instead of talking about inventory and high profit, we should be talking about something of the human values of life and what we should be doing for people, and I am hopeful someday that we will have that kind of policy.

Senator RANDOLPH. Thank you, mayor.

[Applause.]

Senator RANDOLPH. We are honored with the presence of Neil F. Hartigan, the Lieutenant Governor of the State of Illinois.

Lieutenant Governor, we hope to have you talk at 11 a.m. and we think we will be able to do that.

We have problems of scheduling, and I am prone to talk when I should not, but we will try to keep you as close as possible in time. Thank you for coming.

STATEMENT OF NEIL F. HARTIGAN, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, STATE OF ILLINOIS

Lieutenant Governor HARTIGAN. Thank you, Senator, for the opportunity to speak this morning.

I have submitted a prepared text, but in the interest of time, I will summarize my statement.

On behalf of the people of Illinois, we are very grateful to you for coming to our State to highlight some of the needs for assistance in Illinois and across the country.

We have the very distinguished chairman of the Illinois Council on Aging here, and the secretary as well. It is a privilege for me to participate with you and the mayor and with men who have done so much in meeting the needs of the senior citizens of our country over the last 40 years. As the mayor pointed out, here in Chicago the first urban senior citizen division, the Mayor's Office of Senior Citizens, was founded over 20 years ago.

In Illinois we have been attempting to move forward. We created a cabinet-level department on aging to try to advance the priorities of the elderly within the State, to give the subject more visibility.

We have succeeded in providing income supplements in the form. of tax relief for the senior citizens and the handicapped in the State.

NOT MOVING FAST ENOUGH IN EMPLOYMENT

However, in the field of employment, we have not moved fast enough or far enough.

We find a situation where, as you pointed out, and the mayor pointed out, many of the countries of the world, the corporations, the unions, are led by people that we are characterizing as senior citizens and, therefore, ineligible to participate in society.

That simply is not common sense. It is one of the things that is robbing us of our ability to meet the problems. How can we have 100 percent of the social problems and take 10 or 15 percent of our most talented population and put them on a shelf, because somebody ripped a page off the calendar. That just does not work.

One of the things I might suggest is that there has to be an overview from the Federal level of the programs for employment. The people do not see this Federal program or that Federal program, they see the end results: Does it benefit the human being, or does it not. And in terms of cost effectiveness and in terms of productivity, many of the programs in existence simply are not working.

Traditional programs for employment through the Department of Labor, for instance, have created 88 senior job specialists in 88 separate offices throughout the State. But, Senator, out of 1,200,000 eligibles in the State, those 88 offices expending millions of dollars produced about 1,200 jobs last year. So for that entire senior population, there were only 1,200 jobs.

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The dilemma is that the senior job specialists also become youth specialists, and specialists in a variety of other areas, so I think another look at this program might be in order.

The Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, the same thing is true there. We have Federal funding in the Department of Labor, Federal funding in the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, yet only 4 percent of those served by that agency are older Americans. Only 1 percent are over the age of 65.

But, there are programs which you have developed, Senator, and they should be expanded, expanded substantially.

We have an RSVP program in the State employing about 3,500 people. We have a senior aide program, but the funds are too limited in that area, and too limited in too many other areas, as well. We have the foster grandparents program, but only 618 people are served in that program. Yet if we have the commonsense to let the elderly work on their own programs, let the senior citizens meet their own needs in_community action, they have the capacity to perform.

I have found this to be true in my own office. Under a grant from HEW, we have been given the opportunity to form two senior action centers in Illinois, and they are run by senior citizens. They worked with 10,000 human beings last year, one at a time, and that effort was the basis for our legislative program that provided tax relief.

One of our fundamental problems is that we have in our State, at the present time, programs that simply are not working and millions of dollars that are being lost because the people that those benefits are intended for are not receiving those benefits.

Senator, the State of Illinois has a program that provides annual cash grants of up to $500 that is only able to reach 107,000 senior citizens.

To end the isolation of the elderly, we announced yesterday, Senator, a program that will take the senior action coalition, 120,000 senior citizens that got together last year as senior advocates, and put the labor unions, the Kiwanis, and others together to go out and find employment for the aged and make them aware of Government programs.

COMMUNITY SERVICE EMPLOYMENT SHOULD BE EXPANDED

Senator, I want to suggest that the community service employment concept be expanded, and be expanded dramatically. We have 546 libraries in this State. Why cannot there be a senior desk at each one of them occupied by a senior citizen who could explain to other elderly persons what the benefits are?

The senior action centers that we have, manned by seniors, do this now. I believe that they can do the job where Government has failed, for we have not lived the problems and if you have not taken a walk, you cannot really talk.

I would like to ask you, therefore, to increase the community service employment programs, perhaps using some of the money spent on Federal programs that do not work well. The traditional programs of the Department of Labor, the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. these are all lovely things, but they are tokens. Take the same dollars and put them in the things that you have sponsored; those work, and would be of tremendous benefit if there are dollars there.

NOTICE ABOUT CASH BENEFITS

And I would like to ask one other thing of you, Senator, it is a pretty simple idea. But perhaps it could help us. It is the isolation of the elderly which is robbing senior citizens of millions of dollars each year in our State.

This is a Social Security envelope. About 900,000 go out every month in our State.

If we simply put a slip of paper into that envelope, listing the full cash benefits that are available from the State of Illinois, then instead of 100,000 people getting the benefits of our program, maybe the 900,000, just by a simple act of intergovernmental cooperation, will be aware of the benefits that will be available.

There would not be any name on this thing. All it would state is that inquiries be directed back to the Illinois Department on Aging, so that the people would get a direct response on how we can help them. And, Senator, the best people to administer that outreach are the senior citizens themselves.

As the mayor pointed out, their effectiveness, their empathy, their understanding, their expertise and experience in the problems that we are confronted with are the best hope we have got for bringing about a day of dignity for the elderly in this State and in this country.

Frankly, maybe this is too simple an idea.

Senator RANDOLPH. May I interrupt at the point where you are discussing the insertion of the material. As you know, Governor, we are doing that in connection with the food stamp program, because we can do that at the Federal level.

When we come to the State situations, it may form a problem, but I think that the problem ought to be attacked, as you have indicated.

I commend you for what you are thinking and what you are doing, and I will give it special emphasis in seeing what we can do.

Lieutenant Governor HARTIGAN. You are the best senior-citizenproblem-solver in this country. If anybody can do it, you can.

I think that we can use the data bank in Baltimore.

The State itself, Illinois, or Michigan, could simply reproduce this sheet and send it to the Social Security Administration. Maybe a couple of thousand dollars is involved, a simple printing.

As far as the Federal Government is concerned, the appropriate envelopes could be selected by ZIP code, so what you are talking about is a stuffing operation, essentially, as far as administrative costs from the Federal Government's point of view. And yet for that small administrative cost for stuffing and the small printing cost that would be borne by the State we could have a very effective outreach system.

When seniors receive this form in the Social Security envelope and return it to the department on aging, they are going to have a good shot at all sorts of benefits. And at the same time once and for all, we can get a decent data base so we can identify the elderly where they are, get the social programs, the nutrition and the rest of the programs, out to them.

Senator RANDOLPH. Governor, we are used to rather huge overruns in the cost of let us say military equipment. You know about that, don't you?

It would not hurt to have a little priority in connection with this. program, and it is a modest program, really.

Lieutenant Governor HARTIGAN. That is correct.

Senator RANDOLPH. We are going to follow through on what you have said. You have given us, not only an idea here, but certainly I think something that is workable. We will come back to you and ask you to work with us in reference to this matter.

SENIOR COMMUNITY SERVICE EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM

Now, you know that Congress, Governor, has approved legislation to increase funding under title IX, the Senior Community Service Employment Program.

Now, if we had sufficient moneys, could we provide jobs for all aged persons 55 years and older, who wanted employment in such a program?

I do not know whether we can. How many would there be in Illinois. would you say?

Lieutenant Governor HARTIGAN. I think the figure for Illinois is somewhere in the area of a quarter of a million. I think the basic underlying premise is, yes, we could provide employment. There is no doubt about it.

When you see the foster grandparent program and the few hundred people involved in it, there is a terrific opportunity there. The senior outreach, Senator, that could be an important program.

The dollars are there, clearly, Senator. If I could suggest one last thing in that respect, you have the checkbook. The Federal Government puts the money into the Department of Labor for these 88 senior job specialists throughout the State. But there is no accountability in terms of priorities, and that is exactly the right word.

Of course, the State should also have a role.

Our nutrition program right now is funded at $600,000 out of a $10 billion a year state budget. The rest of it is Federal money, and the States are saying, "Well, if there is a matching formula from the Federal Government, we will only match up to that point."

The State should contribute more, Senator, if there is any lack of Federal funds available in the area that you have just suggested, I think there are additional State funds there that should be spent to meet senior employment needs.

It is not a matter of replacing the younger worker. It is taking a different kind of approach to take advantage of the unique experience of the aged to meet the new human needs.

Senator RANDOLPH. The younger worker would not be working in those jobs. It is supplementary?

Lieutenant Governor HARTIGAN. Exactly. It is meeting a gap in service. The only people in the country that really have the talent to do it are the senior citizens, themselves.

Senator RANDOLPH. Governor, you are an articulate advocate.
Just one question, and then we can close.

CATEGORICAL VERSUS GENERAL PROGRAMS

In our general programs of employment for the elderly, there are those two contending points of view, the special emphasis program, or the general program. Some say special emphasis would draw away from the overall effort, with the other side saying the special emphasis