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PUBLIC LAW 86-908-SEPT. 2, 1958

[72 S T A T.

Public Law 85-908 September 2, 1958 AN ACT [H. R. 9822] rji^ provide for holding a White House Conference on Aging to be called by the President of the United States in January 1961, to be planned and conducted by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare with the assistance and cooperation of other departments and agencies represented on the Federal Council on Aging; to assist the several States in conducting similar conferences on aging prior to the White House Conference on Aging; and for related purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the ^white House United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may Aging Act. be cited as the "White House Conference on Aging Act". TITLE I—NEED FOR LEGISLATION; DECLARATION O F POLICY; DEFINITIONS NEED FOR LEGISLATION

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SEC. 101. The Congress hereby finds and declares that the public interest requires the enactment of legislation to formulate recommendations for immediate action in improving and developing programs to permit the country to take advantage of the experience and skills of the older persons in our population, to create conditions which will better enable them to meet their needs, and to further research on aging because— (1) the number of persons forty-five years of age and older in our population has increased from approximately thirteen and one-half million in 1900 to forty-nine and one-half million in 1957, and the number sixty-five years of age and over from approximately three million in 1900 to almost fifteen million at the present time, and is expected to reach twenty-one million by 1975; and (2) outmoded practices in the employment and compulsory premature retirement of middle-aged and older persons are depriving the economy of their much needed experience, skill, and energy and simultaneously, depriving many middle-aged and older persons of opportunity for gainful employment and an adequate standard of living; and (3) many older persons do not have adequate financial resources to maintain themselves and their families as independent and self-respecting members of their communities, to obtain the medical and rehabilitation services required to permit them to function as healthy, useful members of society, and to permit them to enjoy the normal, human, social contacts; and (4) our failure to provide adequate housing for elderly persons at costs which can be met by them is perpetuating slum conditions in many of our cities and smaller communities and is forcing many older persons to live under conditions in which they cannot maintain decency and health, or continue to participate in the organized life of the community; and (5) the lack of suitable facilities and opportunities in which middle-aged persons can learn how to prepare for the later years of life, learn new vocational skills, and develop and pursue avocational and recreational interests is driving many of our older persons into retirement shock, premature physical and mental deterioration, and loneliness and isolation and is filling up our mental institutions and general hospitals and causing an unnecessary drain on our health manpower; and

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