CHART XI PROPORTION OF AGING MALE VETERANS WORKING AS MAJOR ACTIVITY,1957-1958 Unemployment strikes with greater frequency and is more extensive in the aging group as a whole. Men 65 and over normally employed in establishments with 8 or more employees each in early 1956 showed four times the rate of unemployment of those below this age. In March 1959 a Census survey indicated minimal unemployment of aging veterans, but the definitions of employment used to meet some uses of the data made them of little significance measures of economic status or of need arising from any lack of suitable employment. as Reemployment problems of the aging veteran After leaving an established position, whether the reason be the retirement policy or the termination of the need for his services by the current employer, or whether the action results from a voluntary decision by the aging veteran to make a change involving his employment, it appears that with advancing age finding new employment becomes more difficult. Entrance on a new job involves not only a condition of physical and mental fitness but the possession of the skills and capabilities in demand in the area with remuneration or other attractions great enough to induce the aging individual to prepare, if necessary, for alternatives through retaining or otherwise. In the latter connection a study of counseling and placement services for older workers by the Bureau of Employment Security in 1956 indicated that about 40 percent of those placed through its service were shifted to a new occupational group and nearly twothirds of the remainder changed industrial divisions within the occupational group. Other drawbacks appeared. Of the above group about half had to accept lower pay than they received in their previous employment. This survey also found that a distinct decline in the proportion of applicants placed in employment began to take place at age 60, somewhat less than 48 percent of those 60 to 64 having found employment, and a very sharp decline in successful job seeking set in at age 65: for those 65 and over only 24 percent found employment. Within this latter group it was apparent also that the older the individual, the greater was the difficulty in finding employment. Whatever the local reasons may be in each of the unsuccessful placement or job-finding efforts, two current developments may become of future importance: amelioration of personnel policies requiring compulsory retirement automatically on attainment of a given age and the development of incentives to the individual to defer retirement. Because of their increasing importance in the future, further consideration is given to these developments in chapter VIII. Chapter IV INCOME AND PURCHASING POWER OF AGING VETERANS INTRODUCTION TOTAL MONEY INCOME MONEY INCOMES BY SIZE CLASSES MONEY INCOME BY URBAN-RURAL LOCATION MONEY INCOME BY GEOGRAPHIC REGION INCOME IN KIND Receipt of monetary income is the main source of economic living support of veterans aged 65 and over but not the sole source. Broadly conceived, income is the receipt or use by individuals of the goods and services which satisfy human wants. At one extreme, it merges with psychic income factors to which no monetary value can be assigned, and at the other with returns from the windfall acquisition of income-producing assets, such as results from the discovery of a particular natural resource unsuspected by the owner on land being held for other purposes. For most economic evaluations relating primarily to individuals, two basic types of income are considered: monetary income received or credited to individuals in cash, and income in kind. The former constitutes the bulk of the estimatable total and includes salaries and wages, net profits of unincorporated enterprises, dividends, interest, net rents and royalties, and such payments as pensions. Income in kind includes items such a8 food and fuel raised on the farm and consumed by the farm family and the net rental value of owned homes. All of these types of income are of some significance to aging veterans, but their relative importance and size change radically along with the economic readjustments that accompany the aging process. The most economically serious of these changes is the rapid decline in monetary income as a whole resulting from the termination of employment or a sharp change in its nature or drop in the time devoted to it. In roughly the same period, but not effectively synchronized with it, various arrangements for economic maintenance in retirement take over as a main source of support as total monetary income declines and the relative importance of such sources as pensions and the non-money types of income increases. This results in the following pattern by types of individual monetary incomes in the aging veteran population: salaries and wages from employment, net income from self-employment, some property and investment income, and government and private retirement insurance payments, pensions and disability compensation. These will be considered in Chapter V. While the demands upon the aging veteran's monetary income to provide accustomed living requirements have been reduced to some extent by the "graduation" of their formerly dependent children into self-supporting status, and major mortgage reduction, interest, and similar expenses have been pretty much paid off, some other sources of dependence upon it, such as medical care requirements, tend to expand. Growing recognition of the importance of this situation to the maintenance of a high level of economic production and of consumption by individuals in the economy as a whole, has engendered more intensive efforts to obtain more precise quantitative measures. At present, however, no basically reliable total income estimates for the group are available, for reasons that will be apparent later herein. Some Census sampling and some survey results do provide a basis for useful estimates, particularly of the distribution of such income by size classes and according to some location and other qualifications of the aging veteran recipients. Also, Veterans Administration records contain some essential data respecting veterans pensions and compensation payments received by this group. In the following review in this and subsequent chapters utilizing currently available statistics, note will be made of some of the present data shortcomings and conceptual, as well as enumerating, problems involved in overcoming them. TOTAL MONEY INCOME OF AGING VETERANS There were in 1958 about 800,000 veterans aged 65 and over with known money income. They received in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion to $1.75 billion from employment activities, about $600 million in veterans' pension and compensation payments and possibly a few hundred million from such sources as private pensions, net rentals and interest and dividends. Veterans aged 65 and over thus received a total money income in 1958 of around $2.25 billion to $2.5 billion which can be roughly accounted for statistically. MONEY INCOMES OF AGING VETERANS BY SIZE CLASSES Only monetary income will be considered at this point, leaving aside for later consideration the importance of income in kind. A general indication of the previously mentioned sharply progressive decline in monetary income as individuals come into and continue aging in the 65 and over age group can be obtained by reference to median money income data for male recipients, including veterans in the preceding and subsequent age groups. This amounted to $3,681 in 1958 for those in the 55-64 ages as compared with $1,421 for those 65 and over. This decline is also illustrated by the comparison of the size class distribution of money incomes received by veterans in these age groups. It is apparent from Table 18 and Chart XIII presenting monetary income data on this basis that a rather drastic reduction has taken place. One-quarter of all aging veterans in the younger 55-64 ages were in the under - $2,000 income group in 1958, but another quarter had dropped to this level in the 65 and over age group. TABLE 18 TOTAL MONEY INCOMES OF MALE VETERANS AND |