Veterans' Social Security

The CHAIRMAN. This is a hearing on S. 2204, to amend title II of the Social Security Act, as amended, by giving insurance benefits under the Federal old-age and survivors insurance provisions of that act to survivors of veterans of World War II, and for other purposes. (S. 2204 is as follows:)

[S. 2204, 79th Cong., 2d sess.]

A BILL To amend title II of the Social Security Act, as amended, by giving insurance benefits under the Federal old-age and survivors insurance provisions of that Act to survivors of veterans of World War II, and for other purposes

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That title II of the Social Security Act, as amended, is amended by adding at the end thereof the following:

"BENEFITS TO SURVIVORS OF WORLD WAR II VETERANS

"SEC. 210. (a) Any individual who shall have served in the active military or naval service of the United States at any time on or after September 16, 1940, and prior to the termination of World War II (as determined by proclamation of the President or by concurrent resolution of the Congress, whichever is the earlier), and who shall have been discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable after active service of ninety days or more, or by reason of a disability or injury incurred or aggravated in service in line of duty, shall in the event of his death during the period of three years immediately following separation from the active military or naval service, whether his death occurs before or after the enactment of this section, be deemed―

"(1) to have died a fully insure individual;

"(2) to have an average monthly wage of not less than $160; and

"(3) for the purposes of section 209 (e) (2), to have been paid not less than $200 of wages in each calendar year in which he had thirty days or more of active service after September 16, 1940:

Provided, That this section shall not apply in the case of the death of any individual occurring (either before or after the enactment of this section) while he is in the active military or naval service, or in the case of the death of any individual who shall have been discharged or released from the active military or naval service of the United States subsequent to the expiration of four years and one day after the termination of World War II.

"(b) (1) If any pension or compensation is determined by the Veterans' Administration to be payable on the basis of the death of any individual referred to in subsection (a) of this section, any monthly benefits or lump-sum death

payment payable under this title with respect to the wages of such individual shall be determined without regard to such subsection (a).

"(2) Upon an application for benefits or a lump-sum death payment with respect to the wages of any individual referred to in subsection (a), the Board shall make a decision without regard to this subsection unless it has been notified by the Veterans' Adminstration that pension or compensation is determined to be payable by the Veterans' Administration by reason of the death of such individual. The Board shall notify the Veterans' Administration of any decision made by the Board authorizing payment, pursuant to subsection (a), of monthly benefits or of a lump-sum death payment. If the Veterans' Administration in any such case has made an adjudication or thereafter makes an adjudication that any pension or compensation is payable under any law administered by it, by reason of the death of any such individual, it shall notify the Board, and the Board shall pay no further benefits, or shall recompute the amount of any further benefits payable, as may be required by paragraph (1) of this subsection. Any payments theretofore made by the Board pursuant to subsection (a) to any individual, not exceeding the amount of any accrued pension or compensation payable to him by the Veterans' Administration, shall (notwithstanding the provisions of sec. 3 of the Act of August 12, 1935, as amended (U. S. C., 1940 edition, title 38, sec. 454a)) be deemed to have been paid to him by the Veterans' Administration on account of such accrued pension or compensation. No such payment made by the Board, and no payment made by the Board for any month prior to the first month for which any pension or compensation is paid by the Veterans' Administration, shall be deemed a reason of this subsection to have been an erroneous payment.

"(c) In the event any such individual has died during such three-year period but before the enactment of this section

"(1) upon application filed within six months after the enactment of this section, any monthly benefits payable with respect to the wages of such individual (including benefits for months before such enactment) shall be computed or recomputed and shall be paid in accordance with subsection (a), in the same manner as though such application had been filed in the first month in which all conditions of entitlement to such benefits, other than the filing of an application, were met;

"(2) if any individual who upon filing application would have been entitled to benefits or to a recomputation of benefits under paragraph (1) shall have died before the expiration of six months after the enactment of this section, the application may be filed within the same period by any other individual entitled to benefits with respect to the same wages, and the nonpayment or underpayment to the deceased individual shall be treated as erroneous within the meaning of section 204;

"(3) the time within which proof of dependency under section 202 (f) or any application under 202 (g) may be filed shall be not less than six months after the enactment of this section; and

"(4) application for recomputation, pursuant to this section, of a lumpsum death payment heretofore made with respect to the wages of any such individual may be filed within a period of not less than six months from the date of enactment of this section or a period of two years after the death of any individual specified in subsection (a), whichever is the latter, and any additional payment shall be made to the same individual or individuals as though the application were an original application for a lump-sum death payment with respect to such wages.

No lump-sum death payment shall be made or recomputed with respect to the wages of an individual if any monthly benefit with respect to his wages is, or upon filing application would be, payable for the month in which he died; but except as otherwise specifically provided in this section no payment heretofore made shall be rendered erroneous by the enactment of this section.

"(d) There are hereby authorized to be appropriated to the trust fund from time to time such sums as may be necessary to meet the additional cost, resulting from this section, of the benefits (including lump-sum death payments) payable under this title."

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Altmeyer, will you come forward, please?

STATEMENT OF HON. ARTHUR J. ALTMEYER, CHAIRMAN, SOCIAL SECURITY BOARD

The CHAIRMAN. As you will recall, Doctor, there are other bills here that deal with the same general subject. I don't know whether you have given special consideration to them.

S. 2137 is a bill introduced by Senator Butler, who is not here this morning, but it does cover the same subject. Then there is a bill by Senator Wagner on behalf of himself, and the chairman of the committee had earlier introduced another more comprehensive piece of legislation.

We will hear you on this S. 2204. You may make any statement you wish to make, pointing out the differences between the proposed legislations.

Mr. ALTMEYER. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: This problem that we are confronted with is how to assure the persons who have served in the armed forces that they will not have suffered under old-age and survivors insurance by reason of their military and naval service.

That is to say, there are about 15,000,000 persons who have been in the armed forces down to date. About 72 percent of the people who went into the armed forces had some wage credits under the old-age and survivors insurance system. They were not all insured. You have to have a certain number of wage credits in order to be insured. About 34 percent of those who entered the armed forces were insured, but the construction of the eligibility requirements of the Federal old-age and survivors benefit is such that if you do not remain in covered employment that is employment as defined under the Federal old-age and survivors insurance legislation, your eligibility fades out and the amount of the benefit that would be obtainable in case of death or retirement declines.

So all of these 15,000,000 people have suffered from dimunition of their old-age and survivors insurance rights, either rights that had already been accumulated before they entered the service, or rights that they might have developed if they had entered covered civilian employment.

The objective of S. 2204 and these other bills that you have mentioned is to make whole, so to speak, these persons who have entered the armed forces, insofar as their survivors insurance rights are concerned.

This committee first considered this problem back in 1940. There was attached to the revenue bill of that year an amendment which protected persons entering the armed forces in their rights so far as the Railroad Retirement Act was concerned; but after some discussion when the conferees were meeting on the bill, it was decided it was too complicated a question to dispose of in connection with the revenue bill of that year, and so it was put over.

In the meantime there have been a number of bills introduced, some of them dying, of course, when the new Congress came in. There are several in this Congress, and you have mentioned three of them, which illustrate various approaches toward solving the problem.

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