Fact book on aging : selected charts and tables on the personal characteristics, income, employment, living arrangements and health of older persons in the population / Federal Security Agency, Committee on Aging and Geriatrics.

  • United States. Committee on Aging.
Date:
1952]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fact book on aging : selected charts and tables on the personal characteristics, income, employment, living arrangements and health of older persons in the population / Federal Security Agency, Committee on Aging and Geriatrics. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A little over 700,000 were living in institutions, hotels or large rooming houses. Financial Status Government estimates of what it cost an elderly couple to maintain a modest but adequate level of living in an urban area in October 1950 ranged from $1,602 a year in New Orleans to $1,908 in Milwaukee. In 1950 forty-three percent of the families headed by a person 65 years of age or over had a cash income of less than $1,500. Thirty percent had under $1,000. Fifteen per- cent had less than $500. In the same year, more than three-fourths of all persons 65 years and over living alone or with nonrelatives had a cash income of less than $1,000. Nearly 40 percent had less than $500. At the end of 1951, less than 1 in every 3 persons 65 years and over was receiving income from employment either as an earner or the wife of an earner. About 1 in 4 was in receipt of old-age and survivors insurance benefits; another 8 percent were getting benefits from the special re- tirement systems for railroad and government workers or from the veterans' program. One person in every 5 was on old-age assistance. Between 2 and 3 in every 10 aged persons were living solely on other types of income (invest- ments, commercial annuities, industrial pensions, etc.) or were being supported completely by relatives. Nearly 2 out of 3 families with a head 65 years and over own their own homes as against a little over half in the gen- eral population. Total indebtedness, including mortgage, tends to be smaller in families with an aged head, while total assets and net worth tend to be larger. | Employment The proportion of men 65 years and over in the labor force declined from 68 percent in 1890 to 41 percent in 1952. Few changes have taken place, on the other hand, in the relative number of men 45-64 years in the labor force, oO Ss