SOCIAL SERVICES: After 65

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John Steven McGroarty, onetime newshawk, is poet laureate of California by act of the Legislature. Three months ago Californians gave him another distinction when they elected him to Congress. Last week he won for himself still another distinction when he beat President Roosevelt by 24 hours in getting a "social security" measure to Congress. Said Laureate-Congressman McGroarty of his bill:

"Why, this will mean permanent prosperity. It will empty the poorhouses and the jails. It will cure 90% of our problems. You can't laugh it down. This won't debunk. It's the simplest thing in the world. These professional economists can't see it. It comes from the brain of a little country doctor. God always picks a man like that!"

The McGroarty Bill called for the Townsend Plan—$200 a month pension for every well-behaved oldster over 60.

Next day President Roosevelt sent a message to Congress:

"It is overwhelmingly important to avoid any danger of permanently discrediting the sound and necessary policy of Federal legislation for economic security by attempting to apply it on too ambitious a scale before actual experience has provided guidance for the permanently safe direction of such efforts. The place of such a fundamental in our future civilization is too precious to be jeopardized now by extravagant action."

With this admonition the President sent a report on social security drafted not by a man picked by God but by his Cabinet Committee on Economic Security, assisted by civitarians, welfare workers, actuaries, medical men, etc. Within the hour an Administration Bill embodying the Committee's proposals was in the legislative hopper. Its chief points:

Unemployment Insurance. A Federal tax on payrolls will finance the plan. The rate will scale up to 3% in 1938. In any year an employer may deduct up to 90% from his payroll tax for the amount he pays into his State's unemployment insurance fund. The States, within limits, will be permitted to figure out their own insurance plans, but the funds collected must be deposited for safekeeping in the U. S. Treasury. Suggested plan for State adoption:

Four weeks after becoming jobless a man should begin drawing half pay from the insurance fund or $15 a week, whichever is less. This payment should continue from 15 to 25 weeks depending on how long the beneficiary had been previously employed. After 25 weeks insurance payments should end and the unemployed person should go on work relief.

Old Age Pensions. Provision for the aged is divided into three parts.

1) The Federal Government will pay half the amount of State pensions to poor persons now over 65 but not more than $15 a month. If such a pensioner leaves any estate, however, the Government will claim from it the total amount of Federal contributions to his pension.