Old-Age Insurance and the South

Abstract

Insecurity in old age is one of the most threatening by-products of industrial progress. There is probably no economic risk that the average wage earner is less equipped to meet by his individual efforts. Employment opportunities decrease rapidly after about forty; the problem is further complicated by the fact that the length of life and the proportion of older people are increasing. While the older worker thus finds it difficult, and often impossible, to support himself out of current earnings, other factors beyond his control often prevent him from saving for old age during his earlier years. Low wages, disproportionately heavy family obligations, sickness and accident, unemployment, early forced retirement from regular work, and the loss of savings-all these aggravate the hazard of old-age insecurity. The net result of all these forces is cleaIly evident in recent estimates of dependency among the aged. In 1935 at least half the 71 million persons then over 65 were estimated to be dependent.1 A later study2 indicates that in 1937 only one out of every three persons in this age group was substantially self-supporting, either from savings or current earnings. One of the major purposes of the national Social Security Act, passed in I935, is to provide some basic measure of protection against this risk. To this end, it establishes two distinct but interrelated programs: old-age assistance on a basis of need through a joint federal-state program, and old-age insurance on a contributory basis through a national program administered directly by the federal government. Old-age assistance is administered by the states, the federal government matching state expenditures for this purpose, in states with approved plans, up to a combined monthly total of $30 to