Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / Aug. 21, 1969, edition 1 / Page 1
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'"'W; •' ■ Y, . ; , * ' i ■": ■fi. ' • ' •••’■ ' • .j. a, ' .- "* . »*.,-■ j ; 1 .> • ■, « ? ?;\ ^ i ■ * -■ % WELFARE CHANGES PROPOSED BY PRESIDENT NIXON LACK ONE ESSENTIAL PROGRAM by Jack Rider .A lot of people who have very good reason to be cynical over political promises are hopefully but not too optimistically await ing the attempted implementa tion of President Nixon’s recent declaration On welfare. The reception of Nixon’s plan has ranged from jubilant to to tal rejection, very largely de pending on the political orienta tion of the particular person who has reacted publicly. - North Carolina’s Welfare Com missioner has said there Is noth ing new in fee Nixon approach, but be said ithis so quickly after the un veiling of the Nixon plan that his reaction is viewed as moire political than dispassion ate. In congress there is largely a wait-and-see attitude, and with ithe present congressional recess a lot of pulse taking on this par ticular point is being done by a majority of the serious-minded members of congress. For every taxpayer this is a matter of much concern; whe ther the taxpayer is aware of it or not. The welfare program in the last fully documented fiscal per iod cost the taxpayers $6,488, 563,000. The federal tax collec tor provided $3,553,500,000, the state tax collector dug up an other $2,110,948,000 and county tax collectors provided the re maining $824,116,000. This was the cost in fiscal 1966 and since then the figure has moved steadily upward. This money went to 2,073,000 persons in need over the age of 65 and is called Old Age Assist ance, 84,000 blind or nearly blind people, 588,000 totally or badly disabled people and to 4, 666,000 people who were mem bers of families being helped under the program called Aid For Families With Dependent Children. This latter category is both the largest and most controver sial—in fact the only controver sial area of welfare and it is also called that part of ithe welfare program which represeats a to tal failure since it has failed in its mission which is to not only take care of people in need but make it possible for those fami-. lies involved to move off of wel fare. In 1950 there were 2,233,000 people being helped under this program and in 16 years the number had more than doubled and the amount of money spent on the program had more than tripled. Over the same spand of time Old Age Assistance recipients had dropped from 2,786,000 to 2,073,000; aid to the blind had dropped from 97,000 to 84,000 and the aid to disabled grouping had risen from 69,000 to 588,000 but this latter increase was due most largely to liberalization of eligibility requirements and was a program that was first initiat ed in 1950. President Nixon’s plan touch ed all of these areas of public assistance to the needy, but it THE JONES COUNTY NUMBER 18 TRENTON, N. C., THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 1969 VOLUME XVH Record Opening Doy for Kinston's Tobacco Market Has Record Thievery Kinston has sold more pounds of tobacco and paid out more dollars on a given day on its tobacco market but it has never approached the $73.64 per hun dred pound average of Tuesday’s opening day. Sales Supervisor Eck Wall re ports the market sold 1,543,877 pounds of tobacco to get the 1969 sales season off and paid farmers $1,136,886 for that poundage to establish that rec ord high average price. But with this record along came another; not so happy. Some grapd thief stole a truck trailer {belonging to Ramon Mer cer that was parked Tuesday night at the AustimCarolina To bacco Company plant in south Kinston and it was loaded with 25,000 pounds of that high priced1 nicotinish weed. The tobacco was waiting to be processed in the plant for the Flue-Cured Tobacco Stabilization Corporation. Police report (the license num ber of the lost load of tobacco as 62-H, and it was on a red 1965 International rig and the tobac co was.; covered with a yellow canvas.' It ought not to be too hard to find, but at presstime it was still among (the missing. <• The stolen truck was found on Highway US 301 near Lucama shortly before Noon Wednesday but the $17,000 worth of tobacco, _like smoke had vanished in the. air. Kindergarten to OpeninMaysville September 2nd Sylvia Jenkins, operator of the Maysville Kindergarten, this week announced that regular classes would begin September 2nd. The private school is held in 'Maysville Methodist Church and is open to students from Jones and joining counties. Hours are 9 to N^on Monday through Friday. Persons desiring more infor mation may contact Miss Jenkins Fletcher Barber is Named to County's Welfare Board Farm Agent Fletcher Barber has been appointed a member of the Jones County Welfare Board. Barber is the state appointee to the board, and he will serve a three-year term. One member of the board is appointed by the county com missioners and one by the state welfare iboard and those two then appoint the third member. Barber has been a farm agent for many years in the county and it’s felt that his presence on the board will be a big help in dealing with the problems of the colored clients of the de partment. Barber succeeds Preston Banks. Glenn Daugherty at Lackland Air Base Airman Glen P. Daugherty, grandson of Mr. andi Mrs. Colum bus H. Heath of Route 1, Tren ton, has completed basic train ing at Lackland APB, Tex. He is remaining at Lackland for train ing as a security policeman. Air man Daugherty is a graduate of Jones Central High School. dwelt primarily with the prob lem of families with dependent children. ■ For this program he proposes a minimum income to a family .of four of $1,600 per year, and he further proposes to permit an unemployed or under-em ployed father to remain in the home and .shar-e in this subsis tance; a permission which is not granted in a majority of the states at present. Nixon plans further to permit such families to have incomes of up to $60 per month — or an other $T20 per year without any loss of welfare aid and would further .permit a loss of 50 cents for each dollar the family earn ed above that $60 per month. In theory this would mean that a family of four could earn up to $3,920 per year before it lost all public assistance. This would include the base of $720 per year and $3,200 income that would wipe out the $1,600 fami ly grant on the ratio of a 50 cent loss for each dollar of in come. This plan involves two basics: To permit the family unit to remain intact and to permit the family to work its way up and hopefully out of the welfare category. The plan calls for either job training or public works employment for all bread winners of such families who do not find private employment. In the past fathers have left their families in many instances so they could receive welfare aid and perhaps in more instances husbands have been chased away from home — often on trumped up charges by wives who learn ed from neighborhood observa tion that in all too many instan ces a welfare check was far larger than her husband’s take home pay. The popular misconception that the vast majority of child ren in such families were illigiti mates, deliberately brought into the world for the specific pur pose of getting a larger welfare check has just enough truth in it to give the entire program a bad reputation. Illegitimacy has grown rapid ly in the past 10 years, but this is very largely due to the ur banization of huge masses of farm-oriented people, who had simple but effective methods of controlling the problem out on the farm that are far more com plicated in an urban surround ing. Obviously, when nearly five million people — including 3, 526,000 children are involved Veteran REA Co-op Official Honored for Service Noel Lee Jr., president of Tarheel Electric Membership Association (left), presents certificates for 30 years distinguished service in the rural el petrification program to E. M. Philyaw of Comfort, Albelrt N. Venters of Route 1, Jacksonville and H. M. Mallard of Trenton. All three are directors of Jortes-Onslew Electric Membership Corporation of Jacksonville. The presentation was made at a meeting of TEMA in Raleigh August 12-14. Alvin C. Morton of Jacksonville is Jones-Onslow EMC's general manager. there are some of every kind. Nationally the majority are white, because the majority of the nation’s population is white, but the ratio of colored children on relief is more than twice that of whites. Here again this is a reflection of the sudden agricul tural revolution that displaced so many colored farm workers and threw them up on the hos tile city shore. President Nixon’s plan as out lined so far would initially cost a great deal more than the pre sent program’ is costing since it obviously would be available to many more people than the pre sent program which all but bans poverty stricken families in which the father still lives. Viewed as a fraction of the gross national product and in comparison with what the nation spends on other functions of government such as the space program, the Vietnam War, For eign Aid and overall military spending the expanded cost of the Nixon program is not beyond the nation’s reach either politi cally or economically. Although the majority of the wage-earning and tax-paying citizens growl a great deal about the overall welfare burden, their complaint is a generalized one and that number who would summarily deny an aged person, a blind, a crippled or a needy child a very thin slice of this na tion’s abundance is very small. So small as to be politically in consequential. But even the most liberal minded member of the body po litic has every right to demand that a greater effort be made to eliminate the 100 per cent chise ler. The welfare worker, however, is confronted not with theory but with people; and there are no two exactly alike in their needs -or in their ability to help themselves. Consider two families of four — mother, father and two child ren. Let them be exactly the same age, and in one instance both mother and father have the intelligence and character to find work, to' hold a job and to use their money wisely. The other family includes a mother and father of limited in telligence, no character and neither the inclination or the ability to either find a job or Continued on page 8 ON DUTY IN FLORIDA Navy Ensign Donald G. Pow ers, son of Mr. and Mrs. Glenn W. Powers of 413 Dabney Drive, Henderson, and husband of Mrs. Elizabeth A. Powers of Route 1, Trenton, is serving with Train ing Squadron Three at the Naval Air Station at Whiting Field, Milton, Fla. He will serve as part of the team which trains approximately 800 flight students each year. Students are trained in precision, instrument, forma tion and night flying. New River Grape Growers Assoc. Holding Meet 28th The annual meeting of the New River Grape Growers Asso ciation which includes many Jones Countians is being held this year in the Rhodes Town Community building between Riohlands and Jacksonville. Members will be treated to a full blown fried fish supper and before the supper the annual Scuppernong Golf Tournament will be held at (the Jacksonville Country Club. Special tours of the area will be held during the day and be fore* the supper. All members of the association have been urged to make a spec ial effort to attend this annual get-together.
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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Aug. 21, 1969, edition 1
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