what they would do in their own communities if they had funds available or if this public service type of work was created?

Mr. PARTRIDGE. I think this is spotty. I think some rural communities definitely do have plans. Particularly those that have been engaged in development efforts; and a good many communities are, partícularly those where the rural electric systems have sparkplugged a community economic development program planning.

Other communities are caught in the backwash and, not having made the move toward trying to assist themselves, probably would not be planning. I think these would be decidedly in the minority. Most rural communities in which we have experience do have knowledge of the need and I think would be able to apply the benefits provided by the legislation.

Mr. PEYSER. From my own experience as a mayor and active in communities for many years, I would say that not only do rural communities not have planning but suburban communities do not have planning that would be adequate to handle a program if you said 3 months from now we are in a position to give you certain support in these areas.

The thrust of this statement is to find out whether you believe that this legislation that we are proposing should include in it the plans for support planning for these communities.

In other words, should we have a program as a part of this bill that will help provide planning services for rural communities to see what their thinking is and what they plan on doing. When we talk of water and sewer problems it is 2 to 3 years from the time you first think of it, if it moves very rapidly, before you can put the first shovel in the ground. Consequently I am wondering what your thoughts would be of having this type of planning program into being as part of this legislation.

Mr. PARTRIDGE. Planning assistance is necessary and sometimes it takes a great deal of use and sometime not very much. Sometimes just the capability of assembling the experience and procedures used in other communities as a transplant into an area or community undertaking the program is helpful.

We have had some experience with this.

Mr. MURRAY. I think there is considerable progress being made in that respect. No. 1, under the EDA program, ever county must have an OEDP-an overall economic development plan. Certainly, since EDA and its predecessor ARA, have been in business since 1961, I would think that close to a thousand counties have these plans.

No. 2, in 1968, in the Housing Act of that year, there was a provision for including rural communities as eligible for planning grants and while the Department of Agriculture and the Department of HUD have not moved as fast as perhaps they should have, a considerable number of these multicounty areas have been funded and have produced plans.

The Governors of each State are supposed to divide the State up into areas and then these areas are eligible for funds for planning from HUD and they are eligible for funds for planning from Farmers Home.

Farmers Home provides planning grants for water and sewer. They have had to turn down about 6,000 water and sewer applications which were planned because of lack of funds.

They just recently got authorization to again make loans to public bodies for water and sewer. So, I think there is a great deal of planning. How good it is, I am not sure, but I think, while it may be spotty, you can say that a lot of these communities do have plans. Under the 1968 Housing Act an amendment to the bill provided that funds could go for not only planning but to hire personnel to put these plans in action.

What we found when we got involved in rural development a decade ago was that scores of communities got up plans and then put them on the shelf because there wasn't anybody to implement the plans or the funds needed.

They need a full-time staff to put these plans into action. That really is the key to implementing the plans along with the funds. So, I think that many of these areas are in a position to use the funds that would be supplied through this legislation.

Mr. PEYSER. I would like a definition of what you consider a rural community. What are we speaking of when we say "rural community."

Mr. MURRAY. That is an interesting question because about five Government agencies for the last 10 years have been trying to decide the answer to that. The Census believes it is a place under 2,500. Up until last year, Farmers Home believed it to be a place of 5,500 which is not associated with an urban area. In the Housing Act of 1970, this was increased to a place of 10,000 not associated with a rural area.

I learned 2 days ago that Farmers Home now has developed a definition. I haven't seen it yet. So, I suppose it is a place that is not associated strictly with an urban area, but I don't know that the definition is so important.

Mr. PARTRIDGE. We have an even more limited definition of rural area under which we have operated over all of these years with the Rural Electrification Act. That act specifies, "areas having populations not exceeding 1,500." Notwithstanding that fact, you cannot ignore the impact of the small towns, even though they might have populations substantially in excess of 1,500. They are in fact in the service areas of rural electric cooperatives and people do not fall neatly into categories as you can appreciate.

Mr. PEYSER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DANIELS. I now recognize the gentlewoman from Connecticut, Mrs. Grasso.

Mrs. GRASSO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was concerned with your statement with regard to the fact that it is apparently difficult for us to get accurate unemployment and underemployment statistics.

As a former employee of the employment service of the State from which I come, I am aware that we do not have very many rural areas, but a survey was always made by the employment service to assure that a count was taken. We were as well-informed about our less densely populated areas where people might be involved in manufacturing and industry and were aware of the needs of the communities and the particular skills which might be developed or which might exist.

I am surprised that in States which apparently have larger rural areas a very intensive effort is not made to direct the agencies and

energies of Government toward providing at least these basic figures even if they don't provide counsel.

Would you comment on that, please?

Mr. PARTRIDGE. Certainly, we would agree there is a need for it, but the unforunate fact is that in the States which are predominantly agricultural in nature, Midwest, Southwest and many of the Southern States, the data for the open country rural areas are not available. We don't have good information on the numbers of unemployed and the numbers of under-employed, nor by age groups.

This has been our experience generally and pretty typically through

out the areas we serve.

Mr. MURRAY. The census provides unemployment figures, I think, for every county every 10 years. They are still using 1960 figures because, as I understand it, they have not yet released the figures for 1970 census. Figures that you obtain only once every 10 years would not seem to be the kind of figures you would need to mesh with these proposals for public service employment.

Mrs. GRASSO. I am shocked that the localities, on the basis of their own direct interests, have not made an evaluation of local resources and sought to secure this kind of information, the kind of information which I feel should be the direct responsibility of the public service and has been in so many other parts of the country.

Mr. MURRAY. We haven't had extensive experience with this; but we do know that, for instance, in the EDA program, when a county is to be de-designated, the local people may say, "Well, we still have this rate of unemployment which will qualify us." I have known Congressmen who have had to really exert a lot of effort to get an employment service to go in there and do a survey and find out what the case really

was.

Mrs. GRASSO. Thank you.

Mr. DANIELS. I now recognize the distinguished ranking member of the minority, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Esch.

Mr. EscH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Partridge, we are pleased to have you and your colleague here today. And to have your comments, Mr. Murray, concerning the need for some type of public service employment.

In your testimony, you indicated that you believe that it is very important to have as much flexibility from a standpoint of adapting local programs to local problems as possible.

What you are really saying, then, is that there may be pockets of unemployment even though the national picture may vary. If we are going to have public service employment, they should reach out to those pockets.

Mr. PARTRIDGE. Yes, sir; this is our feeling.

Mr. ESCH. And your plea is that we do not neglect the rural pockets, is that correct?

Mr. PARTRIDGE. Yes, we have a concern there and are anxious to call it to the attention of the committee.

Mr. ESCH. The other point that you have raised is that you think we should have total contributions rather than the matching of funds because of the lack of funds or an availability of funds at the local level. So, if we are going to construct the ideal program, given the limita

tions of funds, you would say that we should have a total Federal delivery system rather than a matching system, is that right?

Mr. PARTRIDGE. Yes, Mr. Esch, we know that in most of these rural communities where there is either outright unemployment or underemployment or both, that the likelihood is that the local community is not going to be able to match the funds. The local communities are probably already hardput to maintain the service it is trying to maintain.

Mr. ESCH. I am sure you recognize that we are not without some limitation of funds at the Federal level, aren't you?

Mr. PARTRIDGE. We are.

Mr. Escн. The other question I would have, would be related to total manpower programs and not just the public service.

Would you see that it would be desirable if we could coordinate the regular manpower training programs and public service employment programs so we have full cooperation.

Mr. PARTRIDGE. I should think this would be helpful. We have not discussed this in any detail but such manpower training would be, and it seems to me, should be coordinated through all phases through the Federal involvement and participation.

Mr. ESCH. Ideally, there should be as much coordination within the programs on a local level as possible?

Mr. PARTRIDGE. I certainly think local communities must be involved and must be participants in the planning and carrying out of these kinds of programs.

We have had some rather unfortunate experiences in many of our training programs that train people for jobs that weren't there after the training was accomplished.

This is a waste of money and manpower.

Mr. ESCH. What you are suggesting is that if we didn't have programs in which there is more involvement by the local communities, this is less likely to happen?

Mr. PARTRIDGE. I think this is true, recognizing at the same time that local communities limited in what they can do and must obviously have some rather competent assistance.

Mr. Escн. In terms of technical assistance.

Mr. PARTRIDGE. In terms of technical, advisory, training personnel and, of course, the funding to carry out the programs.

Mr. Escн. Fine. Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DANIELS. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank both of you for your appearance here this morning.

Our next witness is Mrs. Doris Dealaman, freeholder of Somerset County, N.J.

I am pleased to call on our distinguished colleague from New Jersey, Congressman Forsythe, to present this witness.

Mr. FORSYTHE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

At the outset, I would like to point out that certainly in the State. of New Jersey, the question of women's rights comes forward when we have a member of the Somerset County Board of Freeholders and vice president of our State freeholder association, who is very active at the national level in terms of county government.

I welcome you and take pride in presenting you to the committee.
Mr. DANIELS. You may proceed, Mrs. Dealaman.

STATEMENT OF MRS. DORIS DEALAMAN, FREEHOLDER OF
SOMERSET COUNTY, SOMERVILLE, N. J.

Mrs. DEALAMAN. Mr. Chairman; good morning ladies and gentlemen, distinguished members of the Select Subcommittee on Labor.

I am Doris Dealaman, elected freeholder from Somerset County, N.J. I also serve as vice president of the New Jersey Association of Chosen Freeholders and chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Services for the National Association of Counties' Welfare Steering Committee. My purpose in coming here today is to impress upon this subcommittee the concern felt by the 3,049 county governments regarding the accelerating number of unemployed Americans. We are grateful for this opportunity to bring you to an expression of our problem and need, some of our experience and our reaction to H.R. 3613, the Emergency Employment Act of 1971.

To give you a bit of background, Somerset County is located in the heart of New Jersey, midway between New York City and Philadelphia and is strongly affected by both cities. One of our neighbors is Middlesex County, and for the purpose of painting a picture of our local labor situation, I will make reference to both counties since this is the area covered by the statistics available from the Perth Amboy-New Brunswick labor area.

The final 1970 population statistics, just released this week show Somerset County with a population of 198,372 (an increase of 54,559) and Middlesex County with a population of 583,813 (an increase of 149,957). The total population of the two counties is 782,185, a 26percent increase since the census of 1960.

Industry in my area has also increased appreciably. According to the New Jersey Department of Labor and Industry, in the 2-year period between 1969 and 1970, 3,115,000 square feet of new industrial space was added to Somerset County. Of this additional industrial investment, 60 percent was new construction and 40 percent was expansion of existing facilities. For the same period, Middlesex County showed an impressive increase in industry.

Statistics on the work force indicate that between January of 1970 and January of 1971, 8,000 new people became employed in the county. However, the unemployment rate rose to 21,400 from 16,400.

Mr. ESCH. I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if we might, in the interest of time, move that her testimony be considered read and entered into the record at this time and she could summarize, briefly, and then we could go forward to the question period.

Mr. DANIELS. Would that be satisfactory?

Mrs. DEALAMAN. Perfectly satisfactory, since you have received the material.

Mr. DANIELS. If there is no objection, your written statement will be printed in the record at this point and you are now free to summarize your statement.

(The statement referred to follows:)