The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1949-10-06
Disabled And Aged
Wait Action On
New Security Law

Washington LPA)-Legislation
to provide basic security for work
ers and their families when they
reach 65, or if they are disabled
at an earlier age, is moving toward
House approval this week.
House leaders hoped to pass the
bill and send it to the Senate this
week after the Rules Committee
on Oct. voted 5-4 to bring it be-
fore the chamber under a closed
rule prohibiting any changes ex-
cept those proposed by the Ways
& Means Committee which framed
the measure. The Senate probably
will not act on the bill, however,
until next session.
The bill, which was drafted by
the House committee under strong
pressure from the Administration
to modernize the social security
law, will benefit about 50,000,000
workers-including almost every
body except farmers and profess
ional men. 1t is the first major
overhauling Of the social security
law for 10 years and is being un-
dertaken only after years of Con-
gressional delay on the Admins
tration's recommendations
Republicans showed clearly in
the hearings before the Rules
Committee that they were critical
of many of the bills provisions
and would like to rewrite it on the
floor. But they were blocked by
the closed rule, which was adopted
on a straight party line vote.
Chairman Doughton Cd, NC) of
the Ways & Means Committee,
pointed out it had taken his COM
mittee six months to frame the
complicated bill and said it would
be virtually impossible to consider
the hundreds of issues in the bill
properly on the floor of the House.
He reminded the protesting Re-
publicans they had used similar
tactics in passing a social security
bill last year.
Major new provision of the law
would be an insurance program for
totally and permanently disabled
workers which would cover all
those workers entitled to old age
insurance and provide the same
benefits as the old age insurance.
Most of the Republican attack on
the measure was directed at this
section of the bill.
Other changes proposed by the
bill would:
Extend the coverage of the
old age insurance section to H.
0C0,000 new workers, including
about Az million self-employed
such as small retailers; almost a
million employees of state and local
governments who may vote to come
under the law; almost a million
domestic servants; about 100000
employees of nonprofit institutions
and miscellaneous other workers.
2-Increase existing insurance
benefits by so to $50 per cent, with
the biggest increases in the lower
brackets. The average increase
would be about 70 per cent and
would bring the average primary
benefit up from $26 to S44 month,
for those already retired.
approximately double bene-
fits for persons retiring after 1919,
increase the minimum benefit from
$40 to $25 a month, and raise the
maximum family benefit from $85
to $3.50 a month.
4-Credit veterans for the time
they spent in military service from
Sept. 1940-July AT.
5-Raise the wage base for So
cial security taxes from $4,000 a
year to $4,000 and provide a grad
ually increasing tax rate to be di-
vided between employers and en-
ployes. The present tax of 2 per
cent would go up to three per cent
in 1850, four per cent in 1851.
6-Increase and modernize bene-
fits paid to needy persons under
the public assistance programs of
the social security law.