Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Administrative Expenses

example, which ranked second highest in terms of per capita income, grants amounted to $46.51 per capita compared with $18.38 for the continental United States; 50 percent of the total grants to the State went for highway construction. Similarly, in the middle-income group, Wyoming received $34.87 per capita in grants, and 48 percent of all grants was for highways. New Mexico, among the low-income States, received $37.14 per capita in grants. Twenty-eight percent of this total went for highways and 36 percent for public assistance. A similar situation exists in other Western States. Total grants per capita are also significantly high in those States that spend relatively large amounts from State and local funds for their public assistance programs, because of the Federal matching requirement in the Social Security Act. Oklahoma, for example, received 66 Percent of its total grants for public assistance; per capita, the total grants amounted to $33.55. Of total grants to Louisiana, 70 percent was for public assistance; total grants Per capita were $32.33. For the Territories and Possessions, total grants per capita were higher in 1953-54 ($14.65) than in the Preceding year ($12.39). They continued, however, to be less than the total grants per capita for the con tinental United States ($15.271, largely because of the SignifiCantlY low per capita grants to Puerto Rico -the most populous of the Territories and possessions. These low per capita grants, in turn, are oc casioned by the fact that the maximums on individual public assistance payments in which the Federal GoVernment will share and the Federal share of the payments are lower for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands than for the States. The Per capita rise in health service grants to Puerto Rico so far overcompensated for per capita decreases in grants to the other Territories and possessions that the per capita grant rate for the whole group rose slightly during the same Ascal year in which the rate for the continental United States dropped 20 percent.