Children’s Contributions to Old-Age Assistance Recipients in North Dakota and South *Dakota*

T problem of the extent to which the children of aged, needy persons should contribute to their support has been a persistent one in the administration of public assistance since the days of the Elizabethan poor law and even earlier. In recent years this problem has acquired a new urgency because of the mounting cost of old-age assistance. The response to the problem has varied considerably among the States, reflecting differences in public opinion as to the kind of oldage assistance program that people want to support. Thus, in their desire to permit old-age assistance recipients to have the greatest possible feeling of independence from their children, two States now provide by law that the public assistance agencies may not make any demand on the child of a needy aged person to support him, although they do, of course, take into consideration any contributions actually received from children. About a third of the States have established income scales for determining the contributions to be expected from the children of aged recipients in relation to the amount of the children’s income and number of their dependents. Most of the others consider on a case-by-case basis the ability and willingness of children to contribute to their parents. In its 1949 report on the proposed amendments (H.R. 6000) to the Social Security Act, the House Ways and Means Committee recommended that the Federal Security Agency make a study of the whole question