The Comparability of Public Assistance Pay- ments and Social Insurance Benefits

* B u r e a u of R e s e a r c h a n d S t a t i s t i c s , D i v i s ion of C o o r d i n a t i o n S t u d i e s . T H E FACT THAT the average old-age assistance payment has been higher than the average pr imary insurance benefit for the past 2 years is occasionally offered as a commentary on the relative "adequacy" of the two programs. Sta te averages in the two programs, similarly, are sometimes set down together to point up the smallness of the assistance average in some States or of the insurance benefit in others. Implicit in such comparisons is the assumption t h a t the two averages are comparable, either in the purpose of the payment or its significance to the payee. To what extent is this assumption tenable? The present article examines da ta recently made available on the personal characteristics and income of insurance beneficiaries and assistance recipients in Philadelphia and St. Louis, with a view to appraising the significance of the benefit or the as sistance payment t o them. The information on insurance beneficiaries is derived from the study conducted by the Bureau of Old-Age and Sur vivors Insurance in seven cities in 1941 and 1942,1 t h a t on recipients of old-age assistance and aid to dependent children, from special tabulations prepared on request by the Pennsylvania Depar tment of Public Assistance and the Missouri State Social Security Commission.2 For Philadelphia the public assistance data relate to December 1941, the insurance data , to a 12-month period ending between May 1941 and July 1941. I n St. Louis the assistance data are for October 1942, the insurance data, for 12 months ending in either October or November 1941. The extent to which these variations in time may have influenced the findings on income is discussed later.