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3. Provision of $1,500,000 of federal funds to supplement state funds for work for the blind, exclusive of education of the young blind and direct relief.

However, the amendment embodying most of these suggestions failed of inclusion in the final act.

As the bill passed the House of Representatives it contained no reference to the blind. However, the Senate inserted, by committee amendment, a special section, Title X, dealing with grants to states for aid to the blind. This Title X authorized an appropriation of $3,000,000 for the fiscal year 1936, and for each year thereafter, so much as might be necessary for assistance to the states through reimbursement of one-half of the state's expenditures for aid to the needy blind, always with the provision that the federal grant must not exceed $15.00 monthly on behalf of any one blind person. The money was to be paid to states whose plan for aid to the blind had been approved by the Social Security Board as complying with certain requirements similar to the plan for old-age assistance. The bill was reported to the Senate in this form.

Senator Robert F. Wagner, sponsor of the original bill, offered from the floor of the Senate, at the request of Helen Keller, a further amendment to provide that one-half of the proposed funds might be used to reimburse states for expenditures for "locating blind persons, diagnosing their eye conditions, and training and employment of the blind" and also providing that state blind relief laws should contain definitions of blindness and of need acceptable to the Social Security Board. This amendment was passed by the Senate.

Since, however, the bill had passed the House and the Senate in different forms, it was referred to a joint conference committee of House and Senate to have the differences removed by mutual agreement. This conference committee eliminated Senator Wagner's amendment, but accepted Title X as formulated by the Senate committee. The use of federal funds was limited to reimbursements for state programs of blind relief. In this form the bill was passed by both legislative bodies and was signed by the President on August 14, 1935.

It is to be noted that the Act does not provide a direct federal pension to blind individuals, nor does it directly increase the amount which a state or county pays to a blind person. This amount is based strictly on need. In the operation of the plan a minimum subsistence budget for a blind individual is set up, the resources required to meet these needs are calculated and the payments of aid adjusted, where maximums or appropriations permit, to bring the income of the blind individual up to the amount of his budget requirements.

The principle of the "needs test" has been the subject of much adverse criticism. Many blind people and organizations of the blind have urged its abolition contending that since most blind people are indigent and since careful investigation is very expensive, it is believed that maintenance of machinery for the investigations will cost more than the amount saved by the discovery of persons who could get along without the grant.

In the light of some of this criticism it is interesting to note that the American Association of Workers for the Blind, Committee for Adequate Relief appointed in 1929 included in its report of 1931 the following passage: "Adequate relief from whatever source or sources obtained should be adjusted to the needs of the individuals, as determined by the best scientific and social judgment of the standards in the community in which the blind person lives, rather than give fixed and flat rate amounts."

At the time of the passage of the Act twenty-six states had programs of relief to the needy blind in effect but not one of these programs met the requirements of the Social Security Act. Some were rendered ineligible by the stringency of their residence requirements, some by the fact that the blind relief was administered by the counties without supervision of a state agency, some by the fact that the relief laws were not state-wide and mandatory on the counties, some because there was no financial participation by the states. The prospect of receiving a fifty per cent reimbursement from the Federal Government prompted these and other states to hasten to make themselves eligible for federal aid, either by amending existing laws or by passing new legislation. All states with the exception of Nevada have now come under the Social Security Act. Missouri has joined the program, but in addition still pays a flat pension to certain of its blind. (See chapter introductory remarks.)

Even taking into consideration the lower cost of living at the time as compared with that of the present day, most grants in the states having relief programs in 1935 were far from adequate to meet the living needs of sightless people. Many states, therefore, in their new legislation and in anticipation of federal aid increased the maximum limit of payments substantially.