Hearings

OLDER AMERCANS ACT AMENDMENTS OF 1972

WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 1972

U.S. SENATE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AGING

OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in room 6226, New Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas F. Eagleton (chairman of the subcommittee), presiding.

Present: Senator Eagleton.

Committee staff present: James J. Murphy, majority counsel.
Senator EAGLETON. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

The Senate Subcommittee on Aging of the Senate Committee on
Labor and Public Welfare is in order to continue its hearings on the
Older Americans Act.

Our first witness this afternoon is Mr. Weldon Barton, assistant director of legislative services, National Farmers Union.

We welcome you before this committee.

STATEMENT OF WELDON V. BARTON, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF LEGISLATIVE SERVICES, NATIONAL FARMERS UNION

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee this afternoon and testify for the National Farmers Union. Mr. Chairman, the 1970 census reveals that the largest concentrations of those 65 and older continue to reside outside our metropolitan areas. Small rural towns which are home to many of these older Americans usually lack the services and activities found in larger cities. Employment opportunities, too, are scarce.

Concern with such problems of older Americans led Farmers Union to establish Green Thumb, the first national Operation Mainstream program, to provide part-time work for unemployed, low-income, older persons in rural areas.

Today, through employment in Green Thumb, over 3,000 of these older men are making rural America a more attractive place in which to live or visit. They are developing parks; restoring town halls, senior centers, and other public buildings; and providing the manpower for many other local projects.

Since 1969, their efforts have been complemented by 300 women in our Green Light program.

Green lighters serve in local schools, senior centers, libraries, and welfare officers. In addition, they devote one-third of their time to outreach work among the sick and disabled, especially other elderly.

We are happy, Mr. Chairman, that we do have an application into the Labor Department to extend Green Thumb into the State of Missouri. As you know, we have not had a final decision on that; but we hope we will get a favorable decision on that in the near future.

In short, the Farmers Union has a deep concern for how our Government in serving its older people. We support programs to strengthen these services.

A basic weakness of past efforts to establish services for older people in the Federal bureaucracy has been a lack of visibility and political muscle. We are all familiar with the legislative history of the Administration on Aging and its subsequent fate within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Farmers Union is convinced that, just as the problems of our senior citizens transcend the program authority of any single Cabinet department, so must efforts to solve those problems. We, therefore, strongly support creation of an Office for the Aging in the Executive Office of the President, proposed in S. 3181, the Action on Aging Act of 1972.

Such an Office in the Executive Office of the President will be able to develop priorities and plans for action unhindered by traditional departmental limitations. It will also be able to coordinate existing programs for senior citizens as the Administration on Aging has never been able to do.

Perhaps most important, an Office for the Aging in the Executive Office of the President will give programs for senior citizens political support at the highest level of our National Government.

We would have a unit boring within the Presidency, working for larger budgets, working for initiation of new programs that will give some real muscle to senior citizens programs in the Government.

So that the Office for the Aging will have a secure status within the Presidency, it must have the statutory base that S. 3181 will provide. The statutory base will also make the Office responsive to Congress, as it should be.

Farmers Union also supports giving the Office for the Aging funds to initiate innovative or experimental programs as is proposed in S.

3181.

We do not feel that program administration generally should be a primary responsibility of the Office for the Aging. Once programs have proved themselves, they should be moved to an operating agency. However, a fund for experimental programs will give the Office increased "clout" with operating agencies. Experimental programs will be more likely to receive a trial if their funding does not have to be found among the budgets of existing programs.

The above approach to Federal organization for the elderly has also been recommended by the President's Task Force on the Aging, the Advisory Council on the Administration on Aging or a successor to the Senate Special Committee on Aging, and the White House Conference on Aging. We hope this will be one instance in which study leads to action.

Responsibility for operating programs serving our older citizens should remain in the Administration on Aging within HEW. Farmers Union supports S. 3181 in its elevation of the head of Administration on Aging to the status of an Assistant Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Such status will give programs for the elderly more visibility and political status within HEW.

We also support extension of the Older Americans Act itself.

We see a need to expand the program authority of the Administration on Aging, and we support S. 3076, introduced by Senator Hartke, in its efforts to do this. The provision for construction of senior centers and other facilities will be especially helpful in rural areas where local resources for such construction are scarce. We also endorse the service roles in retirement program for older Americans proposed in title VII of S. 3076.

In summary, the National Farmers Union urges passage of S. 3181 with its increased stature for Federal programs on aging. We also support the increased program authorizations for the Administration on Aging contained in S. 3076.

This concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to respond to any questions you might have.

Senator EAGLETON. Thank you very much, Mr. Barton, for an excellent and cogent statement.

I subscribe to the principal thrust of your statement in that programs relating to the aging do suffer from a lack of visibility and a lack of clout and a lack of political muscle. I share your attitudes in that regard.

In your statement, you talk about experimental programs, et cetera. How would you describe your own Green Thumb program? Has it in Four judgment proven itself, or would you still deem it to be in the experimental stage?

Mr. BARTON. I think the Green Thumb program has certainly proven itself. Mr. Chairman. It has been in operation now for about 6 years, Green Light for about 3 years.

We have had several thousand older men and several hundred older women to go through the program. We certainly think that the kinds of tasks that they have done have been of real benefit to society, in the sense of various maintenance tasks that otherwise would not have been done. That is kinds of things like painting park benches, planting shrubbery on highways, maintaining older buildings, and so on. These are things that could easily go by the board, and we would never undertake. They are things that I think years from now we would be very happy that we did undertake.

In addition to being a benefit to society, we know that the program has been of real benefit to the individuals concerned. It has given them a sense of livelihood. It has brought dignity to their lives that they otherwise would never have attained in their later years.

We are certainly convinced that the program has proven itself, and we are happy to see that there is some minimal expansion of it. We think it is ready for expansion beyond the additional funding that we are apparently going to get at this point.

Senator EAGLETON. There are 3,000 men participating in Green Thumb nationwide at the present time.

Mr. BARTON. That is right.

Senator EAGLETON. What is the largest number of enrollees in any one State, roughly?

Mr. BARTON. We have 17 States.

Senator EAGLETON. Supply that figure for the record: 3,000 people divided into 17 States would be less than 200 per State.

Mr. BARTON. That is correct.

Our largest States are Arkansas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin with 303 worker slots each.

Senator EAGLETON. If you divided 15 into 2,000, you would get 200. So less than 200 participants per State. Can that be described as any more than scratching the surface, so far as the potential of this program is concerned?

Mr. BARTON. As you indicated, Mr. Chairman, that is the way it would have to be described. It is just scratching the surface. There are hundreds of people that would love to get into the program and could truly benefit by it in each of the States that we are presently in; and certainly there are the other States that have great potential for the program. So it has just scratched the surface.

Senator EAGLETON. Last week, this subcommittee reported S. 555, introduced by Senator Kennedy to the full Labor and Public Welfare Committee, and a provision of that bill would transfer Green Thumb or retain it in the Department of Labor, but make it a permanent, ongoing program.

Do you favor that concept?

Mr. BARTON. We certainly favor that concept. We favor making it an ongoing program with expanded funding.

Senator EAGLETON. In his speech to the White House Conference on Aging, President Nixon pledged doubling the operation of the programs from $13 to $26 million.

Have you seen any tangible result from that pledge that the President gave to the White House Conference?

Mr. BARTON. We are seeing some increase at this point; that is, we are hopeful that we will get some increase and some expansion as I indicated to you earlier.

Senator EAGLETON. I mean have you seen anything that is tangible, rather than pious hope?

Mr. BARTON. We have our application in, and we are hoping, as I say, that we will get the money. But we do not have it in our hands as yet, and we think, as I know you do, that this expansion is long overdue. (Information subsequently supplied for the record follows:)

GREEN THUMB EXPANSION

The Department of Labor has advised us that Green Thumb will receive an additional 775 jobs for older workers. Eight new state programs will be authorized:

California