Unemployment Big Factor in Social Work, Report of Social Service Ass’n. Shows

Twenty-one per cent of the funds expended by the New York Jewish Social Service Association for financial relief last year went to families in which one or more able-bodied persons were not able to find work, according to the annual report made public by Miss Frances Taussig, executive director of the association. Total relief expenditures were $435,426, of which $82,233 was devoted to families in which unemployment was a factor. The association is one of the constituent agencies of the New York Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies.

The highest point in unemployment for the year was reached last May, when there was unemployment in twenty-three per cent of all the families to whom the association gave relief, and when $9,330 or 22.9 per cent of all the money expended for relief went to this group of families. During the second half of the year the situation gradually improved, until the last few months showed no more than the usual seasonal amount of unemployment. Early in 1928 the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, which finances the program of the association, recognized the impending unemployment situation and in addition to voting $400,000 for 1928 relief work based upon the expectation of a normal volume of work, set aside an additional sum of $10,000 for use in the possible emergency. The financial report for the year showed that not only did the situation compel the use of this additional sum, but also that a total of $32,118 was expended in excess of the $50,115 spent in 1927 in cases where unemployment was a factor.

Citing the added cost of relief due to unemployment, the reports urges continual study of the problem, instead of the “spasmodic employment committees which last only as long as the emergency which creates them.”