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PUBLIC ASSISTANCE ACT OF 1962

TUESDAY, MAY 15, 1962

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FINANCE, Washington, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:15 a.m., in room 2221, New Senate Office Building, Senator Harry F. Byrd (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Byrd, Kerr, Williams, Carlson, and Morton.
Also present: Elizabeth B. Springer, chief clerk.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

The first witness is Miss Elizabeth Wickenden of the National Social Welfare Assembly.

The Chair is compelled to go to the Armed Services Committee this morning. We will ask Senator Kerr to take the chair. I shall return as soon as possible.

Senator KERR (presiding). Miss Wickenden, we are very happy to have you here this morning and you may proceed in your own way. STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH WICKENDEN, TECHNICAL CONSULTANT ON PUBLIC SOCIAL POLICY, NATIONAL SOCIAL WELFARE ASSEMBLY

Miss WICKENDEN. My name is Elizabeth Wickenden. I am the technical consultant on public social policy for the National Social Welfare Assembly which is a central planning and coordinating federation of national organizations, 57 voluntary organizations, 14 public agencies, and 4 associated groups.

Consequently, I am speaking today not only in behalf of the Social Welfare Assembly but also of the following organizations and individuals:

The National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers. They have also asked that I file an additional statement in their behalf, which I will give to the reporter, for the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, I am also filing with a supplementary statement; for the Council on Social Work Education, also filing a supplementary statement; the Department of Public Affairs of the Community Service Society of New York, also filing a supplementary statement, the Young Women's Christian Association, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Citizens Committee for Children of New York, the National Association for Service to Unmarried Parents, and the Salvation Army.

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There is in addition a group of organizations that support our statement and are testifying in their own behalf. These are the National Urban League, the National Travelers Aid Association, the Family Service Association of America, the National Association of Social Workers, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and the Child Welfare League of America.

In addition, I am also speaking for the following persons who are members of our committee and wish to be identified with this statement in their individual capacity: Mr. Lyman S. Ford, executive director, United Community Funds and Councils of America; Mr. Sanford Solender, executive vice president, National Jewish Welfare Board; Mr. Conrad Van Hyning, executive director, American Social Health Association; Miss Naomi Hiett, executive director, Illinois Commission for Children; Mr. James Dumpson, commissioner, New York City Department of Public Welfare; Mr. Raleigh C. Hobson, director, Richmond (Va.) Department of Public Welfare; Miss Helen Harris, executive director, United Neighborhood Houses of New York, Inc.: the Honorable Justine Wise Polier, justice, Domestic Relations Court of New York; Mr. Harleigh Trecker, dean, University of Connecticut School of Social Work; Mr. Sidney Hollander, of Baltimore, Md., and Miss Jane Hoey, former director, bureau of public assistance.

Sir, I will file for the record the formal statement of this group, but I think it would be more useful if I would summarize its points informally in my actual testimony.

I would like, first of all, to indicate that the National Social Welfare Assembly has this year for the first time adopted an official statement on public welfare which makes clear what I think has been the growing sentiment among all voluntary welfare organizations that their central interest lies in the strengthening of the public welfare program.

If there ever was a time, and perhaps there was in the past, when people felt that there was some possible conflict of interest between public and voluntary welfare, that time has long since passed, because with all our resources, we know that voluntary agencies cannot begin to meet the problems that confront us today.

I would like to ask that this official statement be incorporated in the record.

Senator KERR. What is the official statement?

Miss WICKENDEN. I have several items to submit. The position. statement on public welfare of the National Social Welfare Assembly. Senator KERR. Now, are these statements that you are talking about repetitive?

Miss WICKENDEN. Well

Senator KERR. My suggestion is that your statement be made a part of the record. You summarize it as you wish. If you have a supplemental documents, that you file them with the record.

Miss WICKENDEN. All right. Yes, I have several documents and I won't ask each time then, if that is not necessary.

Senator KERR. All right. The material you are submitting will follow your oral presentation.

Miss WICKENDEN. In accordance with this statement, there has been a very great interest among all, the whole social welfare community in the efforts during the past year to reappraise the public welfare program. This has been done in many ways. I myself last year was the director of a project at the New York School of Social Work which published a report "Public Welfare, Time for a Change."

Many of the people associated with our committee served on the Committee appointed by Secretary Ribicoff, the Ad Hoc Committee on Public Welfare. We have welcomed in every way the effort made by the Secretary to take a look at public welfare, with the hope of making it more responsive to current needs.

We were, therefore, very supportive of the proposal submitted by the Secretary, and which now comes to you in the form of H.R. 10606. Senator KERR. Is that endorsement general or do you care to discuss the

Miss WICKENDEN. We have certain reservations, sir, that I am prepared to present.

Senator KERR. You would be of the greatest service to me, I don't know about the committee, if you would tell me what this part of the bill would do and whether you think it wise or unwise.

Miss WICKENDEN. I think, sir, that is what we would like to do. In terms of what we see as the central focus of the bill for which we are very enthusiastic in our support I would say there are two basic intentions in this bill.

The first is to give the States a greater flexibility, wider resources to meet the actual problems that confront them.

I think that it is important to note that this is basically a States rights bill, that this enlarges the opportunities of the States to meet their problems as they see best in at least 12 different ways that I have noted in this whole bill.

I think the second point that is important to know is the effort make it possible for public welfare and, most particularly, that part of the program, both through public assistance and child welfare that deals with families with children, to be more constructive in its ability to approach the individual problems of individual families in their own terms.

These, I would say, are the two central ideological, philosophical differences in approach in this bill, and our group of agencies is very strong in their support that this should be done.

Now, I would like to speak at this point of four sections of the bill or I should say four points on which we would like to to see the bill as it came from the House modified.

The first of these concerns section 107(a), which was added in the House, and was not in the original proposal of the administration. Of course, I think everyone now realizes, and our official statement says this, that there are a few families that come on to public assistance for whom an outright cash payment may not be the best answer, and the great difficulty about these families is that although there are perhaps very few of them, they do endanger the program for all those who are in great need.

As one might say, every time an assistance check is cashed in a bar, that fact is very quickly spread around the community, and tends to discredit the entire program for those in need.

So the Secretary made the proposal, which is contained in section 108, which we, in general, support; that is, that in those cases exceptions might be made under highly controlled conditions, and within only a limited percentage of the cases, one-half of 1 percent, as he proposed-5 percent as it was changed in the Ways and Means Commitfee-so that the payment could be made to a third party, really a kind of conservator, who would help that mother spend her money wisely and assist her in straightening out her affairs.

That person might be a worker in a private agency. It might be someone in her family. It might be someone in the Public Welfare Department.

But the advantage of this proposal is that it does not affect the basic principle that people should receive cash. It simply affords a method, a very simple method, for making exceptions, a method, I might say, that has worked out very well in old-age and survivors insurance where you have for one reason or another beneficiaries who cannot handle cash.

When this proposal, which was adopted in the House, came before the Ways and Means Committee, it was apparent that there were some members who felt that this provision did not go far enough, and so they added a second provision to deal with the same kind of problem which would seem in effect to supersede 108 altogether, and this is section 107(a).

Section 107(a) says that if a mother or other recipient is not spending her money in the best interests of the child she must be warned, cautioned and so forth, but if she persists in her waste then she may either be placed under guardianship or under the protective payment device or "under any other plan provided for by State law."

And it is that phrase "any plan provided for by State law" to which we object, because this is a cooperative Federal-State program. In many States the Federal Government pays 80 percent of the bill. It seems to us that it goes counter to the whole concept of State relations with the Federal Government whereby the Federal Government specifies the minimum plan requirements under which a State can qualify for aid, if it then comes around behind the back door and says, "Well, we have these minimum plan requirements but anything the State decides in this group of cases will be all right.”

So our basic objection here is that this really undercuts the whole principle on which Federal aid is now given in this program.

If the Federal Congress does not feel that the provisions recommended by the Secretary are adequate, then it seems to me, it should consider its own views in this matter, but not simply abdicate to the States in this particular respect.

Senator CARLSON. Mr. Chairman, if Miss Wickenden would yield here, I think it should be made a point in the record, that the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Mr. Ribicoff yesterday expressed his opposition to section 107.

Miss WICKENDEN. I am delighted to hear that he did, because this is causing us great anxiety. We feel that the basic concept of Federal aid is not unlike that of the Federal Constitution that provides for a cooperative relationship between the States and the Federal Government, but within certain general standards which are specified in the Federal law. This system has worked extremely well during

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