Concurrent Receipt of Public Assistance and Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance

COVERAGE OF the Nation’s aged population by the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance program has expanded rapidly in recent years. By February 1960 an estimated 10.1 million persons aged 65 and over-646 of every 1,000 persons in that age group-were receiving benefits under that program. Largely as a result of the increasing financial protection afforded the aged population by oldage, survivors, and disability insurance, the number of persons receiving old-age assist,ance has been declining. In September 1950 there were 2.8 million recipients of old-age assistance, representing 226 per 1,000 population aged 65 and over; by February 1960 the number had drppped to 2.4 million, and the rate had fallen to 151 per 1,000. Old-age assistance recipients far outnumbered aged beneficiaries of old-age, survivors, and disability insurance in 1950, but by the beginning of 1960 aged beneficiaries outnumbered aged recipients of assistance by more than 4 to 1. The influence of old-age, survivors, and disability insurance has also been felt in the other public assistance programs. As the protection under that program for the surviving children of deceased workers has expanded, the number of paternal orphans needing aid to dependent children has been reduced. As a proportion of all families receiving aid to dependent children, those with the father dead declined from 1’7.1 percent early in 1953 to an estimated 10.0 percent early in 1960. The growth of old-age, survivors, and disability insurance has undoubtedly been a factor also in the gradual but continuing decline since December 1958 in the number of persons receiving aid to the blind. In the program of aid to the permanently and totally disabled, created by the 1950 amendments to the Social Security Act, the number of recipients has increased each month. This growth has occurred despite the fact that since July 1957