The Morris County chronicle., 1908-12-15

| pulSOTy 1uSuTduCS uuuCl dOtOA hAASAe
| direction and with Government help.
Thus every person working for
wages or salary not exceeding $500
4 year must take out an old age or
lnflrmity insurance policy on which
| ne pays one-half of the annual prem
UNI while his employer pays the other
half From the fund thus obtained
! pensions are paid to persons whom
sickness or infirmity have incapaci-
| tated for work as we'll as to those at
tanning the age of seventy years. To
each recipient of an invalid or old age
pension the Government makes an ad-
ditional grant of it's own.
The amount of the pension is de-
termined upon the double basis of the
wages received by the pensioner while
he was at work and the amount he
has paid in premiums.
In 1907 there were insured in Ger
many in the Government Old Age and
Invalidity Insurance more than four
teen million persons-from which as
founding fact you can gather some
thing of the proportions of the new
idea, says Charles E. Russell, in a
notable article in Hampton's Broad
way
In practice the invalidity pension
has proved more popular than the
strictly old age pension, for the rea-
son that the infirmity pension can be
entered upon when the invalidity oc-
ours and after the age of seventy it
takes the place of an old age pension.
Thus while in 1907 there were 110,-
967 persons receiving the straight
old age pension, there were more than
100000 who were in receipt of the
infirmity pension. The total national
expenditure in 1907 on the insurance
account was $52,750,ooO, of which
about $4,200,O00 was for old age
pensions.
The average pension was:
Per Year
For permanent invalidity 80. 1904
For provisional invalidity 80. 40.14
OF course these sums seem very
small to US, but we must remember,
first, that the difference between our
country and Germany in respect to
the relative cost of living is fact
always to be reckoned with in MAX
ing comparisons, and second, that
Germany was the pioneer in these
reforms and her cautious first steps
have been far exceeded by the nations
that have followed her.
There are five classes of contribu-
tors to the German fund:
1. On annual wages or salaries of
$3.50 the annual premium is 8 "
cents a week; 2. On annual wages or
salaries of $137.50 the annual prem
lum is 5 cents week; 8. On the an
nual wages or salaries of $21250 the
annual premium is cents a week; 4.
On annual wages or salaries of
s2S7.50 the annual premium is Z II
Or salaries of $500 the annual prem
'um is 8 cents.
Benefactions under the act are
somewhat restricted Thus old age
pensions are paid to only those who
have contributed for at least 1900
weeks and the disablement pension to
hose who have contributed for at
east 500 weeks. 1t was thought that
wholly unrestricted pension scheme
was too fearsome an experiment, the
whole thing being at best so bold, a
leap in the dark and in defiance of
sacred traditions.
This is the scale of German pen
.to,,r oooOvd u, n ~ aIocrac.
Class / ..............$2 $27.50 year
Glass 2 $500 a year
| Glass 3. 1850 year
Class 4.............. A $3.50 a year
Glass 5..... $3.50 a year
Even in a country where living is
as cheap, easy and comfortable as it
is in Germany, $3.50 year as a
pension is no great sum; but it is an
income, man can live on 1t in Ger
many, and every reform must have a
beginning, often of a timid and feeble
character
There is also another matter to be
considered The Government collects
these pensions are paid, composed of
the contributions of workmen and
employers. 1t is thus in possession
of an enormous sum of money. Much
of this money it invests for profits IN
order to provide the pensions, but
part of it is put into improvements
.or the benefit of the workmen for the
sole purpose of improving their
health and thus keeping down the
pension payments. Is not that a most
curious and suggestive fact? AS a
matter of mere business the Govern
ment uses a part (and very consid-
cradle part) of the fund at it's dis
posal to build sanitary homes for
! workingmen, hospitals for working
men, and to fight tuberculosis among
workingmen. And largely from this
ecuse have come those excellent, airy
| well-lighted dwellings in which so
many German workingmen are COM
tortably housed in the cities. And il
| this Government has now found that
20 provide healthful dwellings is good
business because thereby it can keep
Town the Nations sick list, how great
IS the accumulated wrong that other
workmen suffer and have suffered
oeing housed haphazard and so often
in deadly environments? If the Old
Age Pension had wrought no other
| good but merely to force attention t1
his vast, vital and fundamental hous-
Ing problem, the world should call il
| blessed.
/ n I