Abstract

Pension Politics in California: I. The Revolt of the Blind

The article comments on a pension plan of California. The current discussion in California of whether Proposition No. 4, a pension plan adopted in 1948, should be repealed is bringing to public attention for the first time the peculiar problems of one of the nation's most imposed-upon minorities, the blind. Proposition No. 4 increased pensions for the aged from $65 to $75 a month and those of the needy blind from $75 to $85 a month, declared that the existence of a responsible relative did not render a blind person ineligible for a pension, and increased the amount of property which a blind person could own and still be eligible. It is generally agreed that the prime factor in the adoption of Proposition No. 4 was the public's well-known sympathy for the blind.