Better Cornerstone

The social gains achieved by the U.S.

people, said Candidate Dwight Eisenhower at Worcester, Mass, on Oct. 20, 1952, are "not only here to stay, but are here to be improved and extended." Last week President Eisenhower sent to Congress his recommendations for improving and extending the nation's social security so as to preserve it as "the cornerstone of the Government's programs to promote the economic security of the individual." Specific proposals: P: To bring under social security some 10 million more persons (now covered: some 70 million, with about 6,000,000 receiving benefits). People to be added to the plan: self-employed farmers, doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects and other professional groups, and--on a voluntary basis--clergymen, and some state and local government employees.

P: To permit greater earnings after retirement without loss of benefits, e.g., to exempt the first $1,000 of a beneficiary's annual earnings under the retirement test, which now cuts off payments for any month in which the retired person earns more than $75.

P: To give increased benefits to persons now on the retirement rolls. Examples: those now getting the minimum of $25 a month would receive $30; those now being paid the maximum of $85 a month would get $98.50 under the new formula. P: To make $4,200 (instead of the present $3,600) the earnings base for social-security calculations, thereby "enabling 15 million people to have more of their earnings taken into account by the program."

P: To improve benefit credits by eliminating the four lowest years in computing the average earnings of workers. P: To protect the benefit rights of people with substantial work records who become totally disabled before reaching retirement age.

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