The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-12-01
WAGES ABSORB
II CENTS OF
RELIEF DOLLAR
20 Cents Is Direct Dole
and Administration
Costs Here.

food orders plus surplus foods doled
out at the township trustee Office.
Fuel averaging 81 week would be
given.
The same family, under work re-
lief. would receive a minimum Of
s8.25 in weekly salary. Work hours
would be heightened to provide Q
ton of fuel if social workers budget
ing the family found that the fam
lily needed the extra wage.
The maximum earning capacity
of the work relief family of four
persons is SAB month.
Discrimination Charged
A family head who earns more
than $48 or receives a job in pri-
vate industry at a higher wage au-
tomatically is dropped from the
relief rolls if investigators believe
the family head can sustain his
wife and' children.
Jealousy and pickering between
the families on direct and work
relief has resulted in much misun-
derstanding of the aims of social
wokers in Marion county and the
state.
The difference of between So and
81 in the benefits received by one
family on direct relief in a week
and the family of the same size on
work relief has resulted in numer-
Gus complaints of discrimination.
Family size, need, ability to han
die money, effort to re-enter pri-
vate industry, and health, deter
mines the families placed on work
relief and given wage to budget
into food, shelter and clothing.
S25,OOO,0OO Is Spent
The mounting cost of relief in the
state in the last seventeen months,
with it's $25,OO0OOO spent, reached
October with 5000 persons, more
persons than live in indianapolis,
dependent on state and federal
funds for their livelihood.
In Marion county alone, 1884
persons, or one out of every family
of five, are on relief lists.
A mathematical digest Of the ex-
penditures of the month in the
state and county follow:
Marion Co. Indiana
Direct relief .$1S6,56s.OS 5 951, 669.S9
Work relief 80. 433,287.23 1855, s42.5I
administration 25,SS9.6O 2O2,191.S9
The monthly average relief case
in the county was $26.26, compared
with $29.61 in the state.
Relief Roll Increases
Twenty-Seven thousand more
families are receiving relief in the
state today than in October, 1888.
Marion county has 1000 more fanli-
lies reduced to indigency in a year.
In September, the relief a case
was but $26.16 in Marion county,
but October brought higher fual
bills and increased relief to raise
that figure to $29.61.
State relief jumped 1881 a fam
lily, from $22..95 to $26.26, in Octo-
Der.
Work relief expenditures form
the bulk of the increased cost of
state as well as county relief.
Huge Gain Shown in Year
In September, 1888, the federal
government had not jingled its
money bags in Indiana for work
relief. The month shows but $780,
606 spent for work relief. But in
September, 1884, the wage relief bill
to the unemployed on work prof.
ects was 81, 567 900, or a sharp in
crease of $1,435,000 in one years
time.
Marion county, in the same COM
parative months and years, hoped
from $18,799 to $385,000 for wage
relief.
Statewide relief dropped in De-
cember, 1888, beginning with the
hiring of men by the civil works
administration. Men left the relief
rolls by the score, and the state ex-
penditures dwindled to $696,000.
Completion of the CWA program
raised the relief ladder and costs
climbed toward a new high in 1884,
with expenditures reaching $2,000,-
O00 in May. The summer months
brought a drop in expenditures. but
work relief increased and relief
rolls grew until October saw 425, 900
persons in the state being cared for
on 100000 in relief money pro-
vided by federal and state aid.
Observation-Disclosures of Relief,