Dr. OPPENHEIMER. No, sir.

Senator MORSE. I am very grateful to you for appearing here today. Thank you, very much. Your written statement will be inserted at this point in the record.

(The statement referred to is as follows:)

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF DR. ELLA OPPENHEIMER

Since the hearings of your committee in 1957 the Department of Public Health has intensified to the limits of its resources its nutrition activities in relation to the needs of children and their families in the low income groups of the population. Mrs. Earl, our nutrition consultant, worked actively with a representative from the Department of Public Welfare in the revision of the standards for grants given to public assistance recipients covering food, clothing, and personal needs. We are particularly gratified that major revisions recommended were made as regards food, by taking into consideration varying ages of children and making allowances for the nutrition needs of children for growth and development in different age periods.

In terms of the surplus food program, Mrs. Earl developed and recommended to the Welfare Department standards for determining the quantity of individual foods the family would receive, based on surplus foods available, how they could be fitted into the family's needs and give a balanced food pattern when added to the foods they could buy.

In addition, she developed special educational materials to give to the people receiving the surplus foods, such as simple menu plans, including the use of these foods, which would give adequate and satisfying diets. I thought you might be interested in seeing examples of this material (exhibit I).

To further implement this demonstration classes were developed for low income families to teach them how to use these foods with the active participation of volunteer groups in the various community centers, the help of volunteer home economists and the home economics department of the public schools, and teachers in the adult education program.

Examples of community centers in which demonstrations have been given: Barney Neighborhood House; Southwest Settlement House; Arthur Capper Dwellings; Northwest Settlement House (this by teachers in adult education program); and All Souls Unitarian Church.

At these live demonstrations, in which the recipients of surplus foods actively participated their contributions proved very valuable and more was learned about how people could use these foods. If it became evident as occurred not infrequently, that they could use more of certain foods Mrs. Earl recommended to the Surplus Food Distributing Division of the Department of Public Welfare that the allowance for the particular food be increased. As a result of these demonstrations the Department of Public Welfare has now made available a nutritionist to work with Mrs. Earl to extend this group educational service and to work more intensively with low income and public assistance families. More educational material is being developed on a continuing basis.

Another significant activity in this area was a community-wide nutrition conference held on November 14-15, 1958, sponsored by the Department of Public Health. Between 500 to 600 individuals representing over 50 community agencies participated in the two sessions of this conference. The program was developed by the agency representatives who submitted questions and comments regarding the most pressing problems of child feeding which they felt needed discussion and community action. I would like to submit for the record a copy of the program for this nutrition conference, the questions and comments submitted by representatives of community agencies which formed the basis of the program, and the summary and recommendations for community action of the discussion group on nutrition and feeding problems of low-income families, which are particularly pertinent to this hearing (exhibit II).

Senator MORSE. I want the record to show that pages 16 through 24 of a study by Mrs. Elizabeth de Schweinitz entitled "Public Assistance and Junior Village Children" will be inserted at this point. I think this portion of her study is especially pertinent because it deals with the problem of why the potential of public assistance is not always realized.

(Pp. 16 through 24 of the study by Mrs. de Schweinitz are as follows:)

WHY THE POTENTIAL OF PUBLIC ASSISTANCE IS NOT ALWAYS REALIZED

1. One of the chief reasons for the inability of the Public Assistance Division to prevent protracted destitution in many instances, and in some to prevent the breakup of the family and the placement of the children is because assistance is not available for all people who are in need.

(a) There is no provision for aid to the unemployed in the District Public Assistance program

At the time the Social Security Act was passed, it was hoped that unemployment compensation would provide for people who were able to work, but unable to find jobs. However, many subsequent developments have prevented this: The relatively low amount of the payment; the length of time a person is unemployed; and the fact that the jobs of many people are not covered by unemployment compensation.

The Social Security Act, which also provides for the matching of State and local funds for certain specified categories of needy people, thus contained no provision for Federal matching of financial grants for unemployed workers.

(b) There is no provision in the District, nor in Federal matching funds, for supplementation of earnings from full-time employment of either the mother or the father

Again in pursuance of the Social Security Act, the State or county (and for this purpose the District of Columbia is a State), would become responsible for the full costs of adding to the earnings of employed parents such funds as the State might provide to insure a minimum-level-of-living family income.

The number of children in individual families outgrew the stretchability of the earnings of certain regularly, as well as intermittently, employed census day fathers, with resultant Junior Village placement of some of the children.

The lack of family income data about most of the Child Welfare Division families, the previously mentioned dearth of Public Assistance Division income data about applicant families who are ineligible for assistance, and the paucity of data from other sources, prevents the project from arriving at estimates about the numbers of families which, but for lack of money, might have remained together. However, material in a forthcoming project report may give some leads for estimates in this area of social dependence, actual and potential.

The applications from nonpublic assistance families who were certified during September 1958 as eligible to receive surplus foods, have been studied for the insights they give about the composition and income of families. Even prior to the fuller report, it is arresting to note that during September alone, 285 families with 1,107 children were certified. By the end of September the total rolls of the surplus foods program, launched in July 1957, included 2,582 nonpublic assistance families with their 11,154 children.

(c) "The continued absence of a father from the home," an aid to dependent children eligibility requirement for the mother and her children, presents serious social and administration difficulties

The Social Security Act provides matching funds for "*** a child-deprived of parental support or care by reason of the death, continued absence from the home, or physical or mental incapacity of a parent, and who is living with the father, mother, *** [and other close relatives]."

The summaries of cases in an earlier section of this report illustrate in a fractional way a few of the issues faced by public welfare administrators throughout the country since 1935, in determining when a man has "deserted," the shortcut phrase for "continued absence from the home."

Probably no State has been satisfied fully with the definition and requirements it has used, nor with its present practices, in relation to absent fathers. A few fathers in any State do fade-apparently for keeps. But the come-and-go, inand-out nature of many low-income marital relationships has led to a wide variety of policies, all of which have been characterized by administrative headaches in deciding how continuous is "continued absence."

It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to obtain evidence to verify the impressions of some members of the community that even employed or occasionally employed fathers desert so that their wives and children can get on assistance. There can be no doubt but that lack of money is always a complicating factor

in the desertions in low-income families. There can be somewhat more doubt as to the extent to which it serves as the dominant factor-or as an altruistic motivation.

A corollary aspect of the desertion issue for the administrators of assistance programs lies in their legal and administrative responsibility to obtain (or to work with law enforcement and other organizations to obtain), funds from the deserting father for the support of the family-if he can be located.

Public officials and others fear encouraging paternal irresponsibility. An even stronger reality, perhaps, is the fear of spending public funds, through assistance grants on behalf of deserted mothers and children, for whose support the father is not only responsible, but toward whose support he may have some capacity to pay. One State may be tougher or less tough than another in determining what constitutes desertion under the interpretations of the Social Security Act and its amendments. But to obtain Federal funds to match its own in the aid to dependent children program, each State must have clear-cut policies equally applicable to all and provide for the application of such policies.

The essential dilemma which results from the administrative necessity to define and enforce the conditions under which a man establishes his continued absence from his home, and which results from efforts to locate the deserting father, is that the financial plight of mothers and their children often ceases to be the issue. Hence the deserting man's family may be left unprovided for. The man's desertion, while total as far as support is concerned, may be of an evanescent nature; his occasional visibility may prevent his children and their mother from receiving income through aid to dependent children either intermittently or continuously. (d) Stepfathers since 1953 in the District of Columbia public assistance program, have been required by the Department to be responsible for their stepchildren In 1954 this policy was extended to require that when the mother is associating with a man in a relationship similar to that of husband and wife, whether or not the man actually lives in the house, he is to be held responsible for the support of all of the children, whether or not he is the father of any or all of them.

The agency had previously tried many ways to deal with the problems involved in fixed financial responsibility for children when their mother remarried, or was living with a man not her husband who might, or might not, have been father of any or all of her children. It found itself dissatisfied with the several approaches under which it had operated earlier.

The agency's present policy however, appears exceedingly difficult to administer. Although the project speaks only to that present policy, history suggests that grants available to able-bodied poor people, intended to ameliorate their lives, are likely to become encumbered with stipulations about socially desirable behavior which can becloud the original intent of providing minimum necessities, such as food and shelter.

Too, the various stipulations about adult behavior and relationships upon which grants depend are likely, as history suggests, to stimulate some recipients to shrewd and evasive chicanery. These dual human reactions of some providers and of some recipients, may explain in part the development in certain countries of flat government grants to all people, for specified purposes, regardless of income. Illustrations from other countries include family or children's allowances and certain medical care programs.

The project suggests that very low-income families, as described in the best available literature, are likely to have standards and values which are at marked divergence from those which characterize other groups in our society. In the District, low-income families are predominantly Negro, as is indicated both by the public assistance and the surplus foods rolls. In reading aid to dependent children records it proved impossible to tell from descriptions of parental behavior and attitudes whether a particular family was white or Negro. The common elements were the total poverty in background, opportunity, income, and nonconformity to community wide standards.

Thus, because of the high proportion of Negro families among the low-income families studied, Negroes evitably appear to contribute most to the difficulties that public assistance encounters in enforcing the stepfather policy, despite the probability that income level, rather than race, may be the major contributing factor.

Despite the improvement in educational and economic level of many District Negroes during recent years, there still are many low-income families who as yet have not had the opportunity to rid themselves of patterns of woman-dominated family life, and of patterns of child rearing and of sexual behavior which were

the patterns of their ancestors. Thus their mores, their ways of rating themselves and of being rated by friends, may be the exact opposite of the mores expressed in the "stepfather policy."

In 1955 the agency established a special unit of investigators on the recommendation of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Non-Support "*** for the location of absent fathers who were failing to support their dependents." At present the investigators' task, among other assignments, is to locate absent fathers, and to determine whether the man, said by the mother to be absent, actually has a continuing connection with her. The assignment includes obtaining data to supplement the findings of the social work staff, so as to insure the enforcement of eligibility policies which bear on the father's continued absence, and to insure the application of the "stepfather" policy.

The project impression, based on the aid to dependent children records studied of Junior Village census day children, is that the stepfather policy seems to set up a barrier to a frank relationship between client and agency, and that constructive help seldom seemed possible in the resulting atmosphere of distrust. One reason is that the agency is symbolized to the aid to dependent children mother both by the social workers who helped her get on the rolls (and those currently interested in her well-being and that of her children), and by agency nonsocial investigators who, from her viewpoint, are trying to prove she should not be receiving assistance. In addition, the methods of the investigators in the cases read and discussed with public-assistance staff, frequently made it impossible to realize one of the underlying aims of the Public Assistance Division: to administer assistance in such a way as to strengthen if possible, and never to diminish, the self-respect of the client. (e) The residence requirements (and proof of this must be furnished before even emergency assistance is granted), frequently causes delays in authorizing assistance, and sometimes prevents the giving of assistance

Thus it happens, that while public assistance affords the means by which thousands of children are maintained in their own homes, some children are in Junior Village and also in foster homes or in other institutions, whose families are in financial need, but who are not eligible for financial assistance.

In theory, there is no reason why financial need only could not be established as the base for money grants which bear directly on unity and continuity of family life and the well-being of children.

2. A difficult task for the Public Assistance Division social worker, and a real dilemma for the agency, exists when the father of a family says that he is willing to assume his responsibility at home, and when the mother says she does not want him. When serious trouble has separated them, or when the mother is really unwilling to live with this man, great skill and understanding are required in dealing with the situation. Damage rather than help may result when people are required, or even urged, to do something which is contrary to what seems right or possible to them.

Mr. and Mrs. Jackson's relationship has been unsatisfactory for years. Mr. Jackson has never supported his family. Mrs. Jackson has had a strenuous and difficult time with five babies in quick succession, one of them with a serious physical problem. The family had lived a precarious existence, often with not enough to eat.

In 1957, when Mr. Jackson was sent to jail for nonsupport, Mrs. Jackson received aid to dependent children and was gradually able to pull the home together. When Mr. Jackson was released, Mrs. Jackson did not want him to come home, but the probation officer urged him to return home and finally the mother consented, even though he didn't have a job. Aid to dependent children was discontinued; the family situation rapidly deteriorated, and in February 1958 the family was evicted, and the five children were placed in Junior Village.

It wasn't until late June that Mr. Jackson was again sent to jail for nonsupport. The children could come home because the family again received aid to dependent children.

3. The job of public assistance has steadily increased in complexity and in the multiplicity of detailed, time-consuming duties, all of which require a high degree of e.ccuracy. A great deal of paperwork has always been demanded in establishing the applicant's right to assistance and to verify the recipient's continuing eligibility. This has increased. Brief itemization of some of the major areas of paperwork can only hint at the difficulties the staff encounters in trying to provide social work time to help families stay together, and to handle the inevitable complexities of household management and child care.

(a) As the work of the Division has grown, changes of all kinds have necessarily occurred in the information which is needed for statistical purposes: In the way

budgets are developed, in the ways the amount of the grants are determined, and in other administrative features of the job. Change is always time consuming, and many changes have increased, rather than diminished, the clerical tasks of the social worker.

(b) There are also new services and new ways of dealing with essential steps on behalf of the families which may be highly desirable, yet which inevitably add to the work. The surplus-foods program, and the procedures through which support orders are now handled, illustrate a time-demanding new program and a new method of work on an old problem.

(c) Finally, the public-assistance staff must always be ready to get information for the public, the newspapers, the Commissioners, and the Congress. Such inquiries sometimes require a special study, sometimes writing up a particular

case.

Many things have been added to the total job of public assistance, and practically nothing has been taken away from a job which is an intricate combination of procedures, policies, and people.

The agency itself has taken some important steps to improve the situation, such as decentralizing the records so that active cases are more available to the social worker. The agency however, has not been able to keep up with the mounting responsibilities.

The administrative staff agree that simplification of the total job, and the job of each worker, are the most next important steps in providing better service. A review of this situation has recently been made by the Bureau of Public Assistance of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and currently a study is being made by the Management Office of the District of Columbia. The Department is hopeful that recommendations from these two studies will result in simplification which will alter the job of the social worker and supervisor for the better.

4. Workloads are far too high. The administrative staff carries a combination of responsibilities which in the States are shared between the State department of public welfare and the local agency administering public assistance. The pressure under which this staff does an exceedingly difficult job, is extreme. Even with constant and excessive overtime it is impossible for the executive and supervisory staff to do many things which they consider essential.

The average caseload is 99 in the aid to dependent children program, and supervisors are responsible for the way in which agency policy, philosophy, and programs are carried to hundreds of families by six to eight workers. The task of the supervisor combines a variety of responsibilities from training a new worker to checking hundreds of budgets for assurance that the grants are correctly computed. Hours of overtime are often required for the primary task of getting grants to needy individuals who are eligible. Seldom is there time, even for experienced workers, to give the often needed practical help which was discussed earlier.

In addition to high caseloads, workers have had to be shifted frequently because of changes in staff and organization. Each shift requires a worker to become acquainted with an entirely new group of families in a new territory.

There are often uncovered caseloads because of vacations, illness, and because of unfilled positions. The result is that the workers in any given unit must carry responsibility for their own load and also for the emergencies which occur in other caseloads. During 1 week in the summer of 1958, a supervisor and one social worker, in addition to doing the ongoing work of their own jobs, met the emergencies on 900 cases and kept the office hours of the entire unit.

5. The staff of the Public Assistance Division is increasingly drawn from young people who have had no previous employment, no experience in working with people, and very little life experience. To do this job they must quickly acquire accurate knowledge of the law, and of detailed and complicated policies and procedures; increase their understanding of people and put understanding into actual practice; achieve an identification with the purpose and goals of the agency; and learn to represent a democratic government to an underprivileged group in a critical community.

The provision of public assistance for people in financial distress is fraught with stupendous problems. Its administration is infinitely difficult, and is subject to constant criticism from all sides and from every angle.

Public assistance cannot abolish poverty; nor can it solve all the problems which prevent mothers and fathers from making a home and caring adequately for children. Basic measures however, which would wipe out preventable economic need, might make it possible for the potential in public assistance to be