plores the boundaries of work-in the traditional sense-and of service in its newest sense; a program that meets the needs of those who work because of financial requirements and those who work because of a will to help, to continue to participate. It must be a program that expands our meaning of the relationship between work and leisure and between occupation and service.

A full and successful strategy to meet the occupational needs where occupation is meant in its broadest sense-must function, in large part, through local agencies and local groups. Only through the complete recognition and exploitation of the virtues of a pluralistic society can Government programs have their greatest impact. We talk here of hope for individuals, and we must meet them as individuals if we are to sustain and fulfill that hope. A successful program for older workers must rest on the wisdom of groups like the National Council for the Aging, working through central information and training centers such as the local employment service.

Most of all the strategy for the older workers, no less than for all workers, must build on the zest for service. For this is only another way of saying that work, as part of life, must have meaning. And that life through work must have purpose.

I propose a strategy for the older worker that will furnish guidance and meaning for all American workers.

There has already been a beginning in this undertaking at the Department of Labor.

Almost 20 percent of the men and women who found jobs last year through the Federal-State Employment Service were older workersover 45. In part, this improvement in performance was accomplished through a strengthening of the USES older worker services program, providing extra staff and extra training. More than 100 staff positions were added for this program. In fiscal year 1967, we will treble this effort. Such action is a consequence of the Department's implementation of the recommendations in the "Older American Worker" report.

The Office of Manpower, Evaluation, and Research through contract with the National Council on the Aging has developed a variety of pilot demonstration programs in more than half a dozen cities, that will be of great usefulness in concentrating further effort on these workers. Such important lessons were learned, for example, as the fact that an older worker spends more years at a new job than a younger worker.

The older worker report submitted to Congress last June enumerated in depth some of the basic problems we face. Our studies showed that only 8.6 percent of all new employees hired among a large sample of employers were 45 and older; that about half of all job openings which develop in the private economy each year are closed to persons 55 and over and a quarter of all these openings are closed to those over 45; that the average level of unemployment among workers 45 and over exceeded 1 million throughout the year; that about four times that number experienced some unemployment during the year; that two-fifths of the unemployed between 45 and 65 and three-fourths of those 65 and over were out of work for 15 weeks or longer; and that the loss to the economy from older worker unemployment in unemploy

ment compensation payments and lost production would amount to at least $4 billion a year.

Since that time conditions have improved, though improvement has been far from satisfactory. The level of unemployment for those 45 and over in March 1966 for example, was down to 830,000, as compared to 1,054,000 a year ago, but the percentage of unemployed older workers who suffered long-term unemployment remained almost con

stant.

Our commitment to make real the right to earn a living will be sorely tested by the older worker.

The drop of almost 200,000 in total unemployment for workers 45 and over demonstrates that this is a problem amendable to action.

One of this Nation's pressing pieces of unfinished business is the task of meeting the problems of American workers which are associated with advancing years. These years can in many ways be the best, if we only use the means at hand to make them so.

Employment-usefulness-is the difference for most people between life's having meaning or no meaning. Yet today, all too often, as a worker grows older he finds the doors of employment opportunity closed to him.

I urge the Congress, if it wishes to take an affirmative step in bringing more meaning into the lives of our older citizens, to give consideration to a flexible experimental employment program such as I have outlined.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary WIRTZ. I think there is a meaningful function for older people which we have only started to explore. I wish we were talking about the possibility of the question of taxing people's time during these years, when there is no income in the ordinary sense but lots of time. I would be against a tax on time.

I would like to see talk in those terms, making sense instead of talking about volunteering for something or other.

What I see in S. 2877 is a provision to make sure that whatever these older people do is not going to take any work away from anybody else. I wonder who has the larger right to take work away from anvone else.

Mr. Missler and some of the others have testified before the subcommitee dealing with a system as we turn responsibility over to younger and younger people. To say this system works better makes no sense. Each accumulating experience for whatever satisfaction comes after that. As I understand life right now we are nourishing a flower, bringing it up and then turning a blowtorch on it.

I haven't talked to you this way before. I haven't felt this deeply before.

The point I would like to make is that as far as the purposes inspiring this legislation is concerned, I am for it 100 percent. I know the President is for it. We have talked about this a good deal in the administration and we just subscribe completely, 100 percent.

If we have any reservations it is that the proposal is too narrow and more specifically, whether we are at the stage where a little more experimenting around be done. We would be glad to complete the record, whatever you felt appropriate.

There are projects under the MDT-as far as the older worker is concerned. There are projects under the Economic Opportunity Act.

I would hope in the final form, the legislation, if it is decided that something more than the present experimental programs are right for this year, be either modified or clarified to make clear the coordinate responsibilities involved.

Thank you very much.

Senator WILLIAMS. I think this legislation enables people who are in the retirement years to make a contribution to society, and in the process have a very rewarding personal experience, but I would certainly agree with you it is only a small step in the whole process of trying to make continuing productive and rewarding years for the people.

You used the expression "20 years of learning-40 years of earning." Secretary WIRTZ. And the rest just waiting.

I am afraid you have encouraged me. Let me put it in a different form. I think it would be the worst mistake to repose today's experience and breakthrough of knowledge, ignorance, through the sound barriers. That is clearing silence. I suggest the same possibility as far as social development, and that one of them would be the recognition that we have got to recognize life in three essential parts instead of two.

Right now we work on a nonsense theory of 20 years of learning, 40 years of earning and whatever left wait to die.

I am suggesting it is the responsibility of society to parallel the accomplishments to make a three-part system of life in which there is that early period of learning, that period of earning, another period of learning so much new has happened in the meantime, new responsibilities, and then at that stage becomes a meaningful stage using the concept of contribution including development of something just as meaningful in personal terms as work is during the middle 40 years. It is something that has nothing to do with welfare, it has nothing to do with a nice place on the shelf for the dust to accumulate; it has rather to do with development of a concept which includes services. Perhaps I have suggested contribution of time rather than money and there ought to be compensation for it other than minimum of security. I have tried to suggest a goal which is diminished by the employee placed volunteerism-what I am trying to talk about is a basic function.

Senator WILLIAMS. I just want to say that I have been here, but a few years, and your testimony moved me more than any I have ever heard.

Secretary WIRTZ. Thanks.

Senator WILLIAMS. It will not only be helpful as we try to develop this idea, it will be most helpful as we try to expand the idea, making older people part of a better community.

Secretary WIRTZ. Thanks very much.

Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you.

We have next Mr. William D. Bechill, Commissioner, Administration on Aging.

We didn't get into some of the clouded questions with Secretary Wirtz, so I have a feeling we have some talking to do after this hearing is over.

Mr. BECHILL. I agree, Senator.

Senator WILLIAMS. Not on the principles, not on the purposes, not on the objectives, but just how we do it.

Now, sir, we are happy to have you proceed in any way you want.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM D. BECHILL, COMMISSIONER ON AGING, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Mr. BECHILL. Mr. Chairman, my name is William Bechill, Commissioner on Aging, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. I welcome this opportunity to testify on your bill S. 2877, Mr. Chairman, and S. 3326, introduced by Senator Smathers.

As you know, a basic purpose of the Older Americans Act is the development of community services for older persons. The Administration on Aging has the responsibility under this legislation for administering three grant programs which emphasize this important

area.

The first of these is grants to the States to help strengthen their State programs on aging and for support of community projects such as the operation of a local council on aging, central information services, the creation or expansion of senior centers, short-term training for people engaged in providing these services, and to support other direct service programs for older Americans. Today, this program is in operation in 34 States and the District of Columbia. The plans of several other States are being readied for approval.

The other two programs, grants for research and demonstrations and grants for training, also emphasize the importance of community programs and services. For instance, 23 grants that have been made in the demonstration and training program will support new and more effective ways of improving the coordination of existing community services for older people, encourage the use of multipurpose centers in organizing and providing and extending valuable new services, and assure the involvment of the leadership and skills of older people.

In addition, under a contract with the Office of Economic Opportunity, we administer the foster grandparent program. Low-income people aged 60 and over are now serving on a part-time basis in 21 communities in the Nation and an additional 12 projects were approved just recently. As of today, there are about 2,100 foster grandparent positions approved. People filling these positions give individual attention and care to children living in a variety of institutions and child development programs. Of those now employed, 28 percent are age 60 to 64, 42 percent are age 65 to 69, and 30 percent are age 70 and over. We have applications from another 31 State and community agencies who are interested in having a similar program.

Mr. Chairman, the issue of social policy to which S. 2877 and S. 3326 are directed is a profound and important one. As a nation, we still lack an articulate and clear policy about the role of people in retirement. We continue to relegate many people to a status in retirement for which often neither the individual himself nor society is adequately prepared. Through the absence of such a policy, each year thousands of healthy and active people must terminate their working

careers overnight. All too frequently, the individual and his family is not prepared, economically or personally, to handle this immediate adjustment from full-time work to full-time leisure.

Certainly, part of the solution lies in the development and creation of a variety of new roles and opportunities in retirement which approximate the same satisfactions and status that are associated with the working years. The proposals contained in the two bills before the committee offer imaginative approaches to this issue, and I strongly support the objectives of each bill.

This year in his proclamation on Senior Citizens Month, President. Johnson said:

A basic goal of an enlightened society must be to provide opportunities which enable older people to keep and strengthen their independence and dignity. . . . We have the power to enrich the lives of older Americans and to benefit from their skills, their wisdom, and their experience. . . . We can provide greater opportunities for older Americans to use their abilities and to participate in useful work and rewarding leisure.

This statement by the President, along with recent actions by the Congress, such as the enactment of the Older Americans Act and the section added to the Economic Opportunity Act last year entitled "Programs for the Older Poor," demonstrate that public policy has moved in the direction of broadening the opportunities and choices available to older people, including meaningful and rewarding activities in retirement. The testimony already received by this committee has indicated clearly that many older people wish to continue to contribute their services for both economic and personal reasons, and that, moreover, there are many community needs which could be met through the services which older people can perform and the skills which older people have.

This area of community need was documented in the recent report of the National Commission on Technology, Automation, and the American Economy. The Commission estimated that there was a total of some 5,300,000 potential jobs in such areas as health services, education, recreation, national beautification, and welfare services. These indeed are the industries of the future in a nation which is becoming concerned not only with the quantity of goods and services it can produce, but with improving the quality of its standard of living and basic services to people.

Many of these services relate directly to the practical needs and interest of older people themselves. For example, community-based programs could be organized to employ older people under the proposed legislation to provide such services as (1) those being developed in multipurpose senior activity centers for older people, of which there are now over 700 in the country, (2) as part-time or volunteer workers in hospitals, nursing homes, and homes for the aged, (3) or transportation, shopping, or personal assistance to those older people who live in conditions of physical or social isolation, and in many other types of services that are developing or underway in a community at the present time.

It is encouraging to note that this kind of participation by older people is being reflected in several of the initial community grants that have been made by the States under the Older Americans Act.