The Role of the Federal Government in the Provision of Social Services to Older Persons

Financing the provision of social services is one of six roles played by the federal government in its effort to improve the circumstances of the elderly. Support for meeting the needs of older persons and the forms in which this support is rendered by society leave substantial numbers of the elderly with unmet needs. Whether the market system can respond to such needs is unclear; until such a response occurs, however, society will depend on social services to fill the gap. Social services for older persons can be grouped into four categories; one of the four consists of services which assure access to the other three. Nowhere in the nation is a complete range of services available even to a small number of older persons, which is a reflection of how recent a phenom enon is the commitment of public resources for this purpose. Most of the resources committed have come from the federal government. They have been made available under three distinct approaches: the first, through the public welfare system; the second and third, through different titles of the Older Americans Act. Because public awareness of the unmet needs of the elderly is likely to increase with participation in the newly implemented federal program of cash assistance— Supplemental Security Income (SSI)—further evolution of the federal role can be anticipated. Furthermore, the approaches through which federal financing is made avail able will probably remain eclectic.