History of SSA During the Johnson Administration 1963-1968

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT

An Advisory Council on Research Development provides assistance to the Social Security Administration for its research program. In 1961, an eminent Advisory Group to the Commissioner formulated and publisheddesirable objectives in a report, "A Research Program for the Social Security Administration."{1} The Croup, headed by Eveline M. Burns of Columbia University, New York City, urged a continuing Advisory Committee from outside Government to measure progress, re-evaluate goals and re-formulate objectives as necessary. The Committee was setup up in 1962. Its rotating membership has included social scientists active in economics, sociology, industrial and labor relations, demography, medical economics, biostatistics and related fields. Members study proposed projects, discuss progress with the staff at meetings several times each year, and make suggestions.

Under the leadership of Margaret S. Gordon, University of California, Berkeley, the Advisory Committee summarized progress since 1961 in a volume entitled, "The Research Program of the Social Security Administration.{2} Members urged greatly intensified research in the social security field, with the Social Security Administration's Office of Research and Statistics taking the lead by strengthening its own resources for short and long-range research and stimulating outside research.

Major emphases, the Committee reported, should be on these studies: (1) adequacy of the existing old-age, survivors, disability and health insurance (OASDHI) program, (2) effects of the program on the Nation's economy and on human behavior, (3) interrelationships among public systems and between public and private schemes for income maintenance and health care and (4) comparative social efficiencies of the present social security system and alternative approaches.

The Committee Report also urged strengthened ties with the academic world through separate research grants program and other means, necessary incentives to recruit superior staff, and wider communication of the Social Security Administration research results.

Members of the 1968-1969 Advisory Committee are:

  • Morton Bernstein, Ohio State University, Chairman
  • Dorothy Brady, University of Pennsylvania
  • James Morgan, University of Michigan
  • Rashi Fein, Harvard University
  • Robert A. Dentler, Columbia University Teachers College
  • Melvin White, Brooklyn University.


Footnotes (Footnote numbers not same as in the printed version)

{1} Included with other source material.

{2} Also included with other source material.