to increase the cash payments for these special types of public assistance to make up for the lack of the former Federal aid in the form of food or work-program earnings.

A Federal grant for public assistance can only match the amount. made available by the State. For this reason there are large differences among the States in the relative amounts estimated for the Federal grants. There also continue to be large differences in the levels of assistance in various parts of the country, as shown in the present estimates for average payments to recipients.

The average weekly number of workers drawing unemployment benefits under the State unemployment compensation laws is about 200,000. This is less than one-fourth the number of beneficiaries a year ago, though the total number of workers covered by the State laws has greatly increased. In recent months persons receiving unemployment benefits have represented about one-seventh of the estimated total number of unemployed persons in the country. The remainder of the unemployed include persons whose previous jobs were not covered by the State laws and those who did not have enough covered employment to qualify them, persons who left work voluntarily or were disqualified from benefits for other reasons, and unemployed workers who are serving the waiting period. Most of these last get a job before the waiting period is up. As you know, no one is eligible for unemployment benefits unless he is available for work and willing to take any suitable work offered him.

Unemployment persists even in a time like this because not all places in the country have shared in wartime activity and because war itself causes many changes and dislocations. Usual business activities have to be curtailed or shut down and the workers laid off may not be reemployed immediately. Even in the war plants there are lay-offs, lasting from a few days to a few weeks, when work is interrupted by shortages in materials, changes in products or in processes, and the like. When these lay-offs come, it is particularly important to have benefits available to help workers to tide over the interval and to stay in the community where they will soon be needed again.

Reports from the States indicate that many of the present beneficiaries are persons who are on the fringe of employability. A study is now being made of persons who drew unemployment benefits in a week in February. Like similar studies made last autumn, this indicates that women and older workers make up a large part of the group of beneficiaries. Among the men, for example, nearly one-fifth were aged 65 and over. In the whole group, less than 6 percent were in occupations for which there was either a local or a national shortage, and most of these few were in the upper age brackets. In other words, the workers now on the benefit rolls represent largely those who find it hardest to get and to keep jobs, though in this wartime labor market they have been able to get enough covered employment to qualify for some benefits.

The great increases in the volume of covered employment are increasing the burdens of the States in maintaining their unemployment insurance records, that is the records of employment and wages which evidence a worker's rights to unemployment benefits when he loses his job. In the many States which are freezing the unemployment insurance rights of men called to the armed forces, it is of added importance to have these records complete, since they are the basis on

which demobilized men will draw their benefits, after the war, if they cannot get a job at once when they come back home.

Under the Federal old-age and survivors' insurance system, likewise, the present volume of employment has greatly increased the workload in maintaining wage records. This system now represents the largest insurance company in the world, with some 70,000,000 separate accounts and some 45,000,000 who are currently paying premiums in the form of contributions deducted from their wages by their employers and the matching contributions made by those employers. In addition to this great number, there is the shifting within covered employment as workers withdraw to enter the armed forces and others who were not previously in covered jobs come in to take their places. Here also we have a special responsibility at this time to make sure that the wage records are complete and accurate. Many of the insured workers who are leaving their jobs for war service will not come home. We must have the evidence to insure payment of any benefits due their survivors on the basis of all the taxable wages they have received under this Federal insurance system. This situation will become crucially important as the married men with children are called to the colors. No provision has been made for freezing the insurance rights of workers who enter the armed forces. So far as I can learn, the United States is the only nation which has not taken steps to protect the social insurance rights of its fighting men.

During the past year the roll of aged workers who are receiving retirement benefits has gradually increased since names have been added more rapidly than those canceled by the death of the beneficiary. The increase, however, is much less than would have been expected ordinarily at this stage in the development of the insurance system. At the end of December some 304,000 aged workers were entitled to receive primary benefits. It is estimated that about double that number-possibly as many as 600,000 additional old people could have qualified for primary insurance benefits if they had presented their claims; in some instances the aged wife as well as the wage earner himself would be eligible. With the present patriotic and other incentives to remain at work, apparently about 2 out of 3 of the aged who could qualify for benefits are staying on the job without even filing a claim.

Moreover, of those whose claims have been filed and granted, nearly one-seventh had their benefits in suspension status at the end of December because they were in covered employment. Doubtless others were working on farms, in small businesses of their own, or in other types of work for which we have no record because benefits are suspended only for specified earnings in covered employment. Among the widows who are entitled to current insurance benefits while they have children of the deceased worker in their care, about one in seven also had the benefit in suspension, in most cases presumably because of earnings in covered jobs.

Old people and women with family responsibilities are likely to be among the marginal workers who may have to drop out of jobs because of failing health or demands at home or when other types of workers are available. The benefits to which persons in these groups are now entitled or could claim thus serve as a current protection against incapacity to work or inability to get a job.

I need hardly add that the insurance protection available to aged persons and to certain survivors of insured workers will be of the greatest importance to them and to the working population as a whole when the war ends and the men in the armed forces are demobilized. The extent to which these marginal groups are now sharing in the war effort, rather than drawing insurance benefits or assistance, seems to the Board convincing evidence-if evidence were needed that the social security program is playing within its present limitations in coverage, in adequacy, and in risks-the part it was intended to play. For the groups now fortunate enough to have access to its resources, it is furnishing a basic minimum protection and a springboard for individual incentive.

EMERGENCY WAR UNIT ACTIVITIES

NATURE OF AND EXPENDITURES FOR ASSISTANCE AND SERVICE RENDERED CIVILIANS

Mr. HARE. You referred to some emergency war unit activities. Would you mind telling us what they are and what is the nature of their work?

Mr. ALTMEYER. There are three different general kinds. The President allotted to the Federal Security Administrator a small sum of money to finance assistance for emergency needs because of enemy action. That emergency program covers people such as dependents of persons at Guam and in Hawaii and in the Philippines, who were killed or captured, or are missing. It covers some of the persons who have been evacuated from Alaska and Hawaii to this country until they get on their feet, and while they are in need.

It covers assistance to families of persons who have been interned if those families are in need.

Mr. HARE. Do you have the figures showing the amount of your expenditures in that line of work?

Mr. ALTMEYER. Yes. I should add also that just recently provision has been made to cover persons who are injured or killed while in the course of their official duties as members of various volunteer protective services set up under the Office of Civilian Defense.

I have a table here which shows that for civilian war assistance there was expended during the period from April 1942 to February 1943, a total of $61,535, covering 559 cases. Additional funds were provided for necessary assistance and services to persons affected by restrictive action of the Federal Government. The amount expended covers help to the Army with the human problems arising out of mass evacuation of Japanese at the time there was declared to be a restrictive area on the west coast. For obligations for assistance rendered to enemy aliens affected by restrictive governmental action the amount was $129,255 through March 31, 1943. Of that total amount $68,000 had been expended under operations on the west coast arising from orders of the Department of Justice and the Army for the removal and relocation of Italians, Germans, and alien persons of Japanese ancestry. The balance of $55,000 represents reimburse ment of advances made by States acting as agents of the Social Security Board in rendering assistance and services to enemy aliens in need because of the restrictive action of the Federal Government.

Mr. HARE. Do you have the number of persons receiving aid under that head?

Mr. ALTMEYER. Under the latter head there were 205 cases in February 1943.

Mr. POWELL. In connection with the mass movement to relocation centers under Army orders there was an allocation of $632,732, of which $539,320 was obligated down to April 30.

Mr. HARE. Of what did those obligations consist?

Mr. MITCHELL. To help them get to some community where they can meet with their relatives or friends or get a job, and all that sort of thing.

Mr. HARE. Do you know how many were assisted or aided in that way?

Mr. POWELL. There was a voluntary evacuation first, handled by the Department of Justice. They gave a certain period of time in which people could move voluntarily. Some of them had relatives in other parts of the country where they were willing to go if they had the money to get there.

Some of them had to have help to pay their transportation or pay for their subsistence until they could be self-supporting, and when the War Department took over it was a question of getting help to them to get their things put in storage until they could be moved to a War Relocation Center.

I have not the actual number of people helped out of the 110,000. I have not that figure, but I can get it. (Statement appears on p. 409.)

ASSISTANCE RENDERED TO CIVILIAN DEFENSE WORKERS

Mr. THOMAS. What are you doing for civilian defense workers? Mr. ALTMEYER. We have had a few cases where we have granted emergency aid to them. We had one case on the coast of death during a black-out, and we have a few other cases pending now.

Mr. THOMAS. You are bound to have some safety rules and regulations?

Mr. ALTMEYER. Yes. First, emergency assistance is given and then if they have suffered permanent injury or disability, or if they have dependents, in case of death we have a fixed emergency scale of benefits, related to their past earning record, somewhat along the lines of the old-age and survivors insurance system. It is a temporary program, and the benefits are paid monthly until some permanent decision is made as to what will be done. We require certification by the Office of Civilian Defense.

Mr. THOMAS. Do you grant a lump sum in case of death?
Mr. ALTMEYER. NO.

Mr. THOMAS. How much do you allow for a minor child?

Mr. POGGE. It is a maximum of $85 for a family. Benefits for children range from a minimum of $10 per month to a maximum of $15. and the maximum for the widow is $45, while the minimum is $30. Mr. THOMAS. The sum total is $85?

Mr. POGGE. That is the maximum.

Mr. THOMAS. It is $45 for the widow and $10 or $15 for the first child, and so on until you get to the maximum of $85?

Mr. POGGE. Yes, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. What are you doing for the people who were on Guam? Mr. ALTMEYER. At the beginning we handled all cases of Federal employees who were not covered under the United States Employment Compensation Act; that is those killed or hurt in their homes or away from work.

We started similarly with employees of contractors who were not. actually in the course of employment but who suffered on account. of enemy action. Congress several months ago passed a law giving the United States Employees' Compensation Commission jurisdiction over those 2 classes of cases-employees of the Federal Government and employees of contractors of the Federal Government. That left a third class that we are still handling, of our civilians who were injured by enemy action but who were not employees of the Government or of contractors. There are about 200 of those cases.

Mr. HARE. Is there any limitation as to how long this assistance will continue?

Mr. ALTMEYER. It is on a month-to-month basis until Congress decides whether it wants to continue it or not.

Mr. THOMAS. Does that mean that if there should be a bombing on the east coast or on the west coast and citizens are hurt, the Social Security Board will immediately step in and provide compensation?

Mr. ALTMEYER. We have two programs worked out. We have an emergency assistance program to see that the people get food, shelter, clothing, and so forth.

Then we have the other sort of program, for paying certain fixed amounts per month, after the first emergency period is over for persons who are injured or the dependents of those killed.

This program could be extended to meet any catastrophe, such as that which might affect the continental United States.

The war assistance program, which is an emergency first-aid program for people in need because of enemy action we are handling through the State welfare agencies, and not directly. We have worked out arrangements with all the State agencies to handle emergency cases if the occasion should arise.

The monthly war benefit program on the schedule just mentioned is handled by the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance.

Mr. HARE. You said a while ago that the rights of the workers who go into the Army were not protected, and that this country is the only country that has not frozen their rights. What do you mean by that?

Mr. ALTMEYER. The other countries I know about have extended the social-security coverage to members of the armed forces while in service, so they continue to have the same rights and to build up their rights while they are in the service of the country. In this country forty-and-odd States have frozen unemployment-insurance-benefit rights but so far as the old-age and survivors' insurance rights are concerned those rights are not frozen and, according to the formula laid down in the law, those rights are diminishing as time passes. Mr. HARE. Has the Office of Civilian Defense a similar program? Mr. ALTMEYER. No.

Mr. HARE. Do you know whether or not they are contemplating a program of that type?

Mr. ALTMEYER. No, sir; we are doing this job for them.