Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1947-09-26
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Thrift Habits DISCOURAGED


r ACK in 1884 and '35 I knew init
~ mately each one of a group Of
some Is printers. They were de-
pendable and capable workmen.
Most of them had been with the one
company over a period of several
years. The large majority of them
were thrifty. Out of each weekly
pay envelope they put something
aside for the unproductive years
that lay ahead.
Then came social security. How
eagerly those printers hailed its as
surance of protection for their de-
clining years! How quickly it drove
the need for thrift out of their
minds! To them there was no
longer a need to save. The govern
ment would do the job for them, and
provide a competence for those
years when they were too old to
work. Nothing I could say; no fig
ures attempted to show them,
could dampen their enthusiasm.
Technically the government has
made good on it's every promise con-
tanned in that legislation, but it did
not promise all that those printers
thought it did. 1t has not accom-
plished all they thought it would
when they quit their thrift habits.
and spent all they earned.
The government promised to de-
liver each month prescribed num-
Der of dollars, the number depend
ing on the earnings of the individ-
ual, and the time over which pay
ments on each account were made.
The government did not promise a
specified amount of food, of living
space, of fuel. of clothes or other
essentials. The government has
kept its promise to provide the
specified number of dollars, but
those dollars do not now buy what
they did of living essentials in 1884
and '35. The purchasing power Of
those dollars has decreased by close
to two-thirds.
LIVING IN POVERTY
One of those printers, widower,
who reached the retiring age of IS
in 1910, now is receiving bit less
than $24 each month. At today's
prices those "a dollars will not buy
essential food, and there are other
essentials needed merely to keep
alive. Thrift through his working
years might have now provided
those other essentials had not social
security discouraged, for him, the
thrift habit. Today he cannot be
placed on any payroll and continue
to receive the $24 the government
provides, but he cannot live on that
sum. Instead of his declining years
being years of ease and compare
tive comfort, they are years of abb
ject poverty.
The fault in the case of that print
er, and with many millions of other
workers, was misinterpretation of
the meaning and results of social
security. Social security could help.
It could mean the difference between
existence and comfortable exist
ence, but it would, at best, not do
all the job of providing what that
printer had expected. Along with
tndI nelp was d Eeeu LUZ llle IeSultS
of thrift on his part with which to
supplement his social security pay
ments.
With the good there was also an
element of bad in social security.
Millions of those who came under
its provisions expected too much. To
them it discouraged all personal eff
forts at providing for their declining
years. To them the government
was doing that for them. They had,
and were permitted to have,
wrong impression. That wrong i'm
preston, together with the de-
creased purchasing power of the
dollar, is responsible for millions of
sad cases today, and there will be
more of the same kind through the
tomorroWs.
America needs an intensive cam
paign of thrift education.