Archive Report
Archive Report
Concern for Problems of the Elderly
Deepening Trouble Despite Many Aid Programs
The aged are supposed to be America's forgotten people, though actually they are becoming more visible all the time. Not only are their numbers increasing, but the calls for public attention to their plight grow more insistent and there has been a steady growth of programs introduced in their behalf. This has been going on for decades. Today's aged were young when Congress, in 1935, responding to widespread concern for the needs of old people, adopted the Social Security Act, thus instituting the nation's first national pension and welfare systems—the latter providing a special category of assistance to the indigent aged. Since then the old people have never really faded from public view. The ...