Old-Age Insurance Benefits, 1955

with respect to the proportion of oldage assistance recipients receiving old-age and survivors insurance. As the coverage of the insurance Program becomes virtually universal, this proportion will no doubt aPpreach loo percent. It will never reach it, however, because many individuals at the lowest economic levels (low-income farmers and migratory and occasional farm and domestic workers) will not qualify for oldage and survivors insurance benefits but will be in serious need of economic aid upon reaching age 65. It is known that the aged individuals receiving both old-age and survivors insurance and old-age assistance have an age and sex distribution that is considerably different from the distributions for those receiving only old-age assistance or only oldage and survivors insurance. Unfortunately, however, information on these characteristics is not collected regularly. Because such data give some insight into future trends, estimates as of February 1956 of the age and sex distribution of all old-age assistance recipients and those receiving both assistance and insurance payments have been made on the basis of sample studies made in early 1953.3 Similar data for all aged insurance beneficiaries can be readily estimated. Actual data are available as of December 1955 and can easily be applied-with extremely high reliability-to the total number receiving insurance benefits 2 months later. Adjustments have also been made in the data to exclude beneficiaries living outside the United States, to count only once as a beneficiary those women receiving both an old-age benefit based on their own earnings and a wife’s benefit, and to exclude wife beneficiaries under age 65 with child beneficiaries in their care. The attached table summarizes the results of these estimates. It is interesting to note that there was little variation-either by age or by sexin the proportion of aged insurance beneficiaries who were old-age assistance recipients. On the other