Mr. ZWACH. You will note that Mr. Carl Wilkin is listed on here to estify and I believe he is an expert in this area of lack of adequate arm income, and what it has done nationwide.

Mr. GRAHAM. I am interested in his testimony and I want a copy of it, but I probably ought to go and see what they are going to do bout the International Wheat Agreement. What they are going to lo probably won't make any difference whether I am there or not, but I would like to go.

I am sorry to have taken so much time. I apologize to the committee ind to the witness who follows me.

Mr. RESNICK. At this time we will hear from Alan Gartner, executive director, Economic Opportunity Council of Suffolk.

STATEMENT OF ALAN GARTNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY COUNCIL OF SUFFOLK (N.Y.) INC.

Mr. GARTNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen of the committee. You have a copy of the prepared testimony which I offer to be filed for the record.

Mr. RESNICK. Without objection, it is so ordered. (The prepared statement follows:)

STATEMENT OF ALAN GARTNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY COUNCIL OF SUFFOLK (N.Y.) INC.

It is an honor to appear before you today. The concern of this committee and of its distinguished chairman, our fellow New Yorker, for the development of rural America is one which we deeply share.

One generally does not think of New York State and Suffolk County in discussing rural America. However, I would like to point out that Suffolk County is the largest agricultural county in New York State and that its production of potatoes, other fresh vegetables, and poultry makes it a major agricultural area producing over $70,023,000 annually in farm products.

Pride in the productivity of our land must, however, be turned to shame in recognition of the fact that too much of this wealth is made possible by the ill-paid farm worker. More than 4,000 of our county's residents work in agriculture and a like number of "migrants" join this work force each year, primarily to process potatoes. The word "migrant," and a peculiar Suffolk County linguistic aberration, "settled migrant," are in truth misnomers in that the "season" is more than six months long and, indeed many whom our community brand as "former migrants" have lived in the county for years if not decades. Our fellow anti-poverty program, the Seasonal Employees in Agriculture, Inc., has found from a survey based upon statements of earnings from the Social Security Administration that for a four year period, 1960-1964, 54 migrants earned an average of $639.95 annual income. And this poverty is made all the more shameful by the fact of the complicity of state and federal agencies, most notably the Employment Service, in the establishment, nurture and perpetuation of this system.

Not only is Suffolk County-which occupies the eastern two-thirds of Long Island-the most productive agricultural county in New York state, it is also the fastest growing county in the State. From a 1950 population of approximately 300,000, the 1960 census showed a population in excess of 600,000, and present estimates indicate a population of just short of 1,000,000. Without comprehensive planning we are faced with our entire county being overcome with urban sprawl, our water table polluted by detergents and household wastes, and our sea-coast raped of its wetlands by dredging and filling.

The mixed rural and urban nature of our county, the western part of which is at the fringe of the New York City commuting area, presents a situation not untypical in gross order, we believe, of other parts of America. Not exclusively rural but with half our county having a population density of under .5 persons

per acre, not solely agricultural but producing more than $70 million of fou products annually, not devastatingly poor but with some 100,000 people living in poverty-the majority of whom are white and living outside of hear "pockets of poverty," Suffolk County is a picture of the problems, and hopes. which confront much of America.

While there are many problems which face rural America, I will comment most specifically upon those which concern the rural poor. Not only would it be presumptuous for me to venture into the broader field of rural life (especially before so knowledgable a forum as this), but also because poverty is so great a part of the problem of rural America. For example:

43% of the nation's poverty is rural, but only 29% of its population. The unemployment rate of rural non-farm residents is 20% higher than for urban residents, and I am sure that the under-employment rate is ever higher.

44% of the nation's sub-standard housing is in rural areas, but only 30% of the housing stock is there.

For Suffolk County there is a similar disproportion between the county as a whole where, according to the 1960 census, 11% of the total families had incomes under $3,000. per year, while 14% of the rural families had below poverty incomes, and a shocking 24% of the rural farm families had below $3,000. a year incomes.

For all of America, and especially its rural poor, a basic and essential step is to establish federal minimum standards for public assistance. Simple humanity demands that this country, the wealthiest the world has ever known, make the commitment to itself and to all of its people, that hunger-indeed starvation, be banished. Recent studies have, hopefully, banished the old canard of the welfare person being a malingerer or "cheat." Over 95% of those on "welfare" are either the old, the infirm, children, or those with child-rearing responsibilities. Were we to lift them out of poverty, we would have served justice and sharpened the problem of combatting poverty. For rural America, where welfare payments are the lowest-averaging less than half of the "poverty line" in many states, such a step would serve to reduce the great pressure for migration to our already over-crowded and often ill-equipped urban areas.

Of similar power would be an end to the outmoded exclusion of farm workers from the benefits of Fair Labor Standards and minimum wage regulations. We urge an across the board federal minimum wage and an equally comprehensive application of fair labor standards including a forty hour, five day work week, time and a half pay for overtime, and health and safety standards protective of workers' well-being. We cannot tolerate a food production system which feeds the affluent at the expense of the underpaid farm worker.

Our history books while recording the great international migrations of the turn of the century, often fail to describe our own intranational migration from rural to urban areas, from farm to town. This migration is not merely one of "history" but of the present. For example, between 1940 and 1965 some 25 million people (in terms of change of residence and not migration) left agriculture. I would like to place special emphasis upon four areas essential to rural development: housing, employment, social services, and coordination of public programs.

As noted above, 44% of the sub-standard housing in this country is in rural areas. Nonetheless, since 1950, the federal government has built more than 36 houses in the cities and their suburbs for each 1 built with the assistance of the Farmers House Administration in rural communities. Furthermore, few of these houses built in rural areas have been for the rural poor.

The need for housing in rural areas is not merely one to provide adequate shelter for a family but it is intimately connected with employment. For we have what the director of our new Self-Help Housing program has called a "circular absurdity" for the rural poor where housing and poorly paid farm work are provided by the employer/landlord and, thus, to improve their housing, they must find other employment, but to find other employment is to lose their shelter.

Steps can and must be taken to rectify this shocking imbalance:

A firm agency commitment by the Farmers Home Administration to serve the housing needs of the truly poor. And this commitment backed up by congressional action to provide funds for low-interest mortgages.

Expanded and improved programs for self-help housing, as sponsored by OEO under Title III-B of the Economic Opportunity Act, including more 3% mortgage money and direct grants to self-help housing families for land purchases.

Authorization for counties to establish public housing authority, as well as towns and municipalities.

New and less restrictive programs for the formation of cooperatives in housing, including the integration of home construction, training programs, and self-help principles.

Programs for the acquisition of existing buildings needing rehabilitation, again incorporating skill training and self-help.

In New York State, and several others around the country, the residents of ndian reservations are so-called "state Indians", that is they were never conidered wards of the federal government nor are they eligible as beneficiaries of ederal Bureau of Indian Affairs programs. In the housing area, the residents f the reservations face a special problem in that as land is held in common, anks will not loan mortgage money because in case of non-payment foreclosure n the land cannot be made. A federal mortgage gurantee program which will at nce assure the mortgagor of return on his money and the tribe of the inviolaility of its lands is a small but critical step to right the centuries of mistreatnent of our Indians.

The absence of employment opportunities in our rural areas is, in many ases, a function of single employment source in the community and/or of a leclining or rapidly mechanizing industry, viz, coal mining in Appalachia or potato processing in Suffolk County. An important step which can be taken by he federal government is to use public policy decisions to have a positive gain for local communities. With recent technological advances in transportation and power resources allowing for a new blend of technology, land and manpower, we urge that decisions as to government contracts and the location of government installations take into account the employment needs and opportunities contracts to be granted to the Seattle area, while at the same time manpower shortages there require other federal programs to recruit workers a thousand miles away in Los Angeles.

It is however, in the broad field of human services that the great growth of employment opportunities are now available and which will continue to grow in the decades to come. A comprehensive development and manpower program in the field of human services will not only meet the employment needs of rural America but will also provide the human resources to over-come the shocking disparties faced by rural residents in the social servces area. For example. over 50% more rural children are behind in school than urban children, while among adult in 1960, average years of schooling completed was 11.1 in urban areas, 9.5 years among rural non-farm people, and 8.8 years for farm residents. In health, rural areas on a per capita basis have roughly half the medical personnel enjoyed by the urban population. In the manpower area, only 20% of MDTA funds have gone for projects in rural areas.

We find our community ill-equipped to deal in a significant and comprehensive fashion with these problems. There are but a few programs, and they are ill-funded, not terribly well implemented, and largely fragmented. In broad scope, the problems which we face. and the failure of present solutions is a familiar reality to those elsewhere in the country.

Concerns about rural poverty often founder on whether we ought to plan to keep the poor "at home" or to assume that they will migrate from the rural areas into the city and the second option produces two further program questions-whether we should plan to prepare the people for the sharp shift to urban life or assume that it is someone elses problem.

We would like to suggest a dual program which seeks to meet the two basic areas: first, the needs of those persons who wish, for one reason or another, to remain rural residents, and, second, a program to meet the needs of those who are going to migrate to the city. In both cases, the program needs to be comprehensive both in terms of design and program components, and integrated in terms of direction and funding.

We believe that it is now time to call for a rural counterpart of the "Demonstration Cities" program.

We believe that it is necessary to bring together the full range of resources including such areas as housing, health, child care, education, legal services.

manpower training and jobs into a single comprehensive, unified funded pro gram. As long as there remain only piece-meal programs, patched together in some amorphous fashion, we will continue to ill-serve rural America.

The prime focus of such a program, which is designed to serve both thes who remain in rural America and those who will move to the city, will be in the area of manpower training, both as a means for individual change and community development. We have often thought of manpower training in too nar row a focus. Such a training program as here proposed would allow entry for persons with zero skills and zero education-thus avoiding the shocking exclusion by many present programs of those most in need of education and training. Throughout the period of training and education those with family responsibilities would receive stipends no lower than the present "poverty line." As persons move from a need for the most basic education into the more direct joi training aspect, efforts should be made to integrate training with jobs. Such patterns as the Nelson-Scheuer Programs of the Office of Economic Opportunity and other programs patterned on the concept of "New Careers for the Poor should be developed. Thus, we will begin to move to a situation where jobs have training built into them rather than holding a person from the job until he is totally trained. Special emphasis will be placed upon those job areas in the broad human services field-not only including education, health and welfare services, but also such areas as beautification and environmental improvement. It is clear that expansion of employment opportunities in the human services occupations must be a function of governmental effort-federal, state, and local. The overwhelming needs in this area-estimated by Congressman James Schener at over 5,000,000 non-professional jobs needed now-demand governmental response in the support of programs to provide drastically needed personnel for education, health, child care, counseling, family services, public safety, recreation, environmental improvement, etc. Thus, the quality of our life as well a the lives of the newly trained and employed will be enhanced.

Also training in these areas will give to the individual the option-and is not the opportunity to make meaningful choices the very essence of freedom-of remaining in (or returning to) the rural area or going to the urban area assured of a skill which is transferable.

Intimately connected with this broad scale manpower program should be such ancillary services as health, legal services, housing, child care, etc. To be suc cessful these services must be an intergral part of the basic program.

Of particular importance to the rural areas of Suffolk County, with its wealth of beaches and other recreational resources and its proximity to New York City. is the development of the tourist industry. The use of manpower training and loan programs specifically designed to benefit the residents of the rural areas will do much to balance the economic situation.

Recently the Department of Agriculture reached agreement with OEO whereby Agriculture's Technical Action Panels (TAPS) would be the local coordina tion agency. A schedule was established where there would be meetings first at the state level and then the county-this was to happen in May. In Suffolk Coun ty, and as far as I can determine in New York State, none of this vaunted coordination has begun to take place. Indeed, I believe that to place the Department of Agriculture in such a role, especially as it relates to the rural poor, is a mistake. The thrust and commitment of the Department, in the past and yet today, has not been toward the poor. Much has been done to help the high pro duction farmer and as a country we are the healthier and richer for it. But millions of rural dwellers have not benefited.

The concept of community action is one with deep roots in American tradi tion combining as it does self-help and cooperative enterprise. As my nine year old son said when I described to him our recently OEO-funded Self-Help Hous ing Program, it is like a community "barn raising." We can harness the strong feelings of independence and the traditions of cooperation of rural America. People can and will work together for their mutual benefit and their community's improvement. While OEO has shared, although to a lesser (and lessening) de gree the imbalance of programs in urban areas, it has demonstrated, we believe the breadth of vision, the commitment to the needs and desires of the poor, and the freedom (as yet) from hidebound bureaucracy, so as to warrant the use of the local community action agency as the focus of programs for rural America.

In a recent report published by the Twentieth Century Fund, and aptly titled. "Poverty Amid Affluence," the simple flat statement is made "The risk of poverty

the rural farm group has recently increased no matter how looked at." That is is true in a nation as rich and skillfull as ours is shameful and unnecessary. - our endeavors, we hope, will propel us toward an end to this condition. Mr. GARTNER. I would like to comment on a number of points I have ised in the testimony. The Congressman knows as a native and felw New Yorker, but others may not, that New York is a great agriltural State. To be chauvinistic for a moment, or at least locally arochial, I will note Suffolk County is the largest agricultural county 1 New York State, producing some $70 million worth of agricultural roducts. However, our pride in that production must, of course, be urned to shame in recognition of the fact that all too much of this ealth is based upon the ill-paid farmworker.

More than 4,000 of our county's residents work in agriculture and like number of "migrants" join this work force each year, primarily o process potatoes. The word "migrant," and a peculiar Suffolk County linguistic aberration, "settled migrant," are in truth misomers in that the "season" is more than 6 months long and, indeed, nany whom our community brand as "former migrants" have lived In the county for years, if not decades. Our fellow antipoverty program, the Seasonal Employees in Agriculture, Inc., has found from survey based upon statements of earnings from the Social Security Administration that for a 4-year period, 1960-64, 54 migrants earned in average of $639.95 annual income. And this poverty is made all the nore shameful by the fact of the complicity of State and Federal gencies, most notably the employment service, in the establishment, nurture and perpetuation of this system.

We have for example, a situation where the New York State Employment Service-and I assume this is true elsewhere in the countrygo to the southern part of our country and recruit migrant workers to work in the potato sheds of Suffolk County. These workers, the bulk of whom are illiterate, untrained and unexperienced are, according to their testimony, induced to come up to Suffolk County with promises of high wages, good working conditions and even various essentially immoral opportunities.

Whether the exact promise is correct-and we have a "He said, she said," or "He said, he said," kind of situation and there are never any witnesses to these talks-the fact of the act is that a branch of the State of New York, funded primarily with Federal dollars, bring people or induces people to come thousands of miles or a thousand miles or so to work in our potato fields at wages that are shameful in America in 1967. If this were not done, if the employment service did not subsidize this low-wage potato processing industry, there are people in Suffolk County today unemployed who, for a decent wage, under decent working conditions, would work in the potato sheds. Suffolk County is not only the most productive agricultural county in the State, it is also the fastest growing. The population was nearly 300,000 in 1950; something in excess of 600,000 in 1960, and approximately a million according to the latest estimates as of this month.

But, without comprehensive planning, without the kind of concern for rural development that this committee brings to bear, we are faced with our entire count becoming overcome with urban sprawl, our water table polluted by detergents and household wastes and our seacoasts losing their lands.