Again, the situation is dynamic. Family status changes with the advancing age of those within the 65 and over veteran group, primarily as a result of increasing widowhood. The proportion of surviving male veterans who are widowed or separated from their wives because hospitalized or for other reasons increases from one-eighth of the total in the age class 65 - 69 to one-third among those 75 and over, as shown in Table 7. Some variations in this pattern appear geographically by regions, between rural and urban areas, and within such areas.

Judging from the available data, it appears that the non-veteran male population 65 and over falls in about the same family status pattern, except for a somewhat higher ratio of those widowed. This latter situation is no doubt accounted for by the larger proportion of non-veteran men currently in the more advanced ages in the 65 and over population where a higher rate of widowhood prevails than is indicated in the case of veterans.

TABLE 7

MARITAL STATUS OF AGING MALE VETERANS
BY AGE CLASSIFICATION, MARCH 1959

Attempts have been made in legislative and administrative provisions of aging veterans' income maintenance programs to take account of the most readily determinable current and changing family status differences. This is indicated later in this study in connection with housing, including institutional, as well as with compensation and pensions.

Family status is changing in nature and in importance to an increasing portion of the aging population 65 and over and is of growing concern to planning for the future by the individuals involved and by business enterprise and government agencies.

GEOGRAPHIC FACTORS AFFECTING AGING VETERANS

The different patterns of living typical of the various regional areas of the United States, and as between urban, suburban and rural locations in the same area, involve wide variations in living costs. An amount of income that is adequate to maintain a generally acceptable social and economic status in one location may be sufficient to support an above-average standard in one place, and fall short of the requirement in another.

This diversity has had a major influence on the determination of economic need under all of the concepts already noted and lies back of the failure thus far to establish any universally satisfactory uniform standard for the United States. It accounts for a certain degree of pressure on the population 65 and over, including veterans, concerned with maximizing the level of living obtainable with their reduced levels of income, to move to other locations either within their established community or elsewhere. It has a direct bearing on the distribution basis for Federal Government funds in programs of concern to the veteran aged 65 and over. Regional and State aging veteran population distribution

The regional and State distribution of aging veterans in 1959 is presented in Table 8 and Chart VII. Their geographic location is roughly similar to that of the population as a whole. Over half are in the Middle Atlantic and East North Central regions plus the individually large States of California and Texas.

Of particular interest from the standpoint of the economic aspects is the fact that half of the aging veteran population is located in the eight States: California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania where per capita income levels are well above the average for the country as a whole. Only one-tenth are in the eight Southeastern States which have the lowest per capita money incomes in the United States, as will be seen in Chapter IV.

Another aspect of this comparative geographic concentration of the aging male veteran population is of prime importance to planning and providing for the economic maintenance of the aging veteran by himself and by the public and private agencies concerned. In attempting to arrive at equitable geographically uniform rates, it is apparent that if they are based on averages for the country as a whole they will not provide the average level of living of each geographic region of residence for the bulk of the aging veteran population, which, as noted above, lives in States where living costs and standards are higher than average.

Other aspects, such as the effect on inducements to the aging veteran to relocate, are considered subsequently herein.

Geographic Migration

There can be no doubt that the economic factors of cash income limitation in retirement and some variation geographically in the cost of living, and hence the quality of living that a given fixed monetary income will buy from place to place, have provided some incentive to the aging group 65 and over, including

aging veterans, to move to new locations on retirement. This has resulted in some "migration," both permanent and seasonal, but much of this shifting appears to have been simply moving into the less expensive local areas, still in reach of old friends and relatives.

The influence of a differential in payments to the aging population 65 and over as between States is illustrated on a small scale by a few local instances of action to deter migration which has been caused by the desire to take advantage of the higher rate. In the case of old age assistance payments, an average per recipient in June 1957 of $35.69 in Tennessee and $28.67 in Mississippi induced some migration to Arkansas where the average payment was $55.53. This caused Arkansas to change its rules

in 1959 for public assistance eligibility to require a residence in the State for at least three years of the preceding five years for one type of assistance, and for the immediately preceding year of the last three years for another.

Under somewhat different circumstances, the State of Washington in 1959 included in its appropriation bill for the Department of Public Assistance a requirement that applicants for general assistance must have resided in the State for three out of the four years immediately preceding the date of application.

However, census data for a decade ago covering the civilian population 65 years of age and over indicate that 90 percent resided in the same house as in the preceding year, 7 percent moved to a different house but in the same county, about 2 percent shifted to a different house in the same State, and only 1 percent moved between States. While the census data for 1960, when available, may show some increase in the population 65 and over and veteran mobility, the proportion involved in inter-State movement on other than a seasonal basis, although important to the immediate areas concerned, will apparently not have a major impact on the economy as a whole.

The promotion of special geographic "retirement areas" particularly in the southeast and on the southern West Coast is still undergoing development. The appeal has been thus far primarily to the middle-income group. Experience with such planned communities to date has not yet encountered on a large scale the effects of further aging of residents and change in family status, such as widowhood, and shifting interests within the aging groups as time goes on.

Two generalizations of importance to the aging veteran group appear warranted in this connection: (1) geographic mobility is usually a last resort of those still employed, as most older workers tend to change their employers or even their occupations before they change their places of residence, and (2) geographic mobility declines in most areas with advancing age.

HEALTH STATUS OF AGING VETERANS

Health status, which has a double economic impact on the individual through its influence on his employment and earning power and upon the cost of maintaining his established living

standard, becomes a factor of primary importance to the aging. Expenses of health maintenance through medical care accelerate greatly with advancing age, and this comes for the man 65 and over at a time when his income and purchasing power declines. Coupled with the rapid rise of the population 65 and over in recent years and looking to the future, this has become a matter of increasing national concern.

Moreover, the same degree of overall health impairment can be of widely different economic significance depending upon its nature and the parts of the mind or body affected and its relation to current employment or to occupational background. Of concern also is the juncture at which its development forces consideration of income-producing alternatives, with or without retraining, and in a reasonable distance of the individual's sometimes predetermined residence.

Within the group aged 65 and over as a whole there is a great diversity, with degrees of impairment varying widely. The common factors appear to be the inclusion with advancing age of more and more individuals with subsequent accumulation of additional impairments and an increasing intensity with reference to the effects on economic activity.

These developments as respecting individuals have been of common knowledge and experience within families and local neighborhoods, and caused no great continuing national concern as long as family and community ties were strong and the members "looked out for each other." The march of progress, however, has led to increasing and more widespread specialization in the whole social and economic spectrum of industrially advanced and advancing countries like the United States. This, in turn, has increasingly broken up the self-sufficient units and groups, leaving the relatively up-rooted individual more and more to find a specialized place occupationally, geographically, socially, where he and his immediate family can obtain maximum living satisfactions. From this has arisen the currently intensifying problems of the aging veteran of concern here. Past the period of family raising, with the youngsters married and setting up or established in homes of their own elsewhere, he is confronted with such new problems as advancing disabilities, compulsory or other retirement pressures, reduced income and social isolation.

The situation changes in pattern and intensity over a period of years rather than appearing suddenly at age 65 or thereabouts when he becomes entitled to participate in most programs for the economic maintenance of the aging individual.

This is clearly evident in the data covering the chronic physical conditions and limitations affecting income-producing activities of the male population 45 and over by age classes for veterans and non-veterans in table 9. The rise with advancing age in the proportion which have such physical hindrances is at a remarkably constant rate. The number of such hindrances and the degree of severity of limitations from the standpoint of employment, and self-employment in an activity like farming, continue to build up within the aging group.