at the time the schedules were filled amounted to $220,954, distributed according to ages as shown in the following tables:

TABLE VI.—Showing the number of employees in the classified civil service in the District of Columbia 70 years of age and over, the amount of salaries paid, the amount and per cent of salaries earned, and the amount and per cent of salaries unearned or the loss due to superannuation.

Calculations based on these schedules show, furthermore, that this loss is increasing steadily and will be doubled in the course of 20 years. These figures are not merely conservative; they are known to be less than the fact.

RELUCTANCE OF OFFICERS TO REPORT ON INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYEES MAKES FIGURES OF LOSS LESS THAN THE FACT.

In order to make the inquiry wholly impersonal, and thus remove, as far as possible, the natural reluctance of officers to give facts concerning the efficiency of individual employees, the commission requested the heads of departments and bureaus to detach the stub bearing the name of the employee at the head of the schedule before returning the schedule to the commission. The commission is convinced, however, that the officers making the reports were still reluctant to turn in schedules that rated anyone as notably inefficient, and that the schedules, in the aggregate, greatly understate the loss which the Government is sustaining through the retention of employees who are no longer able to render efficient service. Believing, however, that it would be preferable to accept the returns as made by the departments rather than to undertake to secure any revision which might make it appear that the commission was endeavoring to "make a case," and had thus presented statistics of loss due to super

annuation that were greater than the fact, the commission has not attempted to modify the returns in any way, although it is apparent that the results are more than conservative, and perhaps do not show much more than half the actual loss sustained by the Government. The figures are useful, however, for it is possible to derive from them. tables showing the future growth of superannuation that will take place if no plan of retirement is adopted. They also enable the commission to show, as an absolute offset to the cost which must be incurred by the Government in establishing the plan, the minimum amount the Government will save from the adoption of the plan of retirement.

BASIS OF ESTIMATE OF FUTURE LOSSES FROM SUPERANNUATION.

The number of employees reported by the departments as belonging to the classified civil service in the District of Columbia, distributed according to age, salary paid, salary earned, the per cent of salary earned, and the per cent of salary not earned at the various ages, is shown by the following table, which is the basis used in estimating future losses from superannuation:

TABLE VII.-Showing the number of employees in the classified civil service in the District of Columbia, distributed according to age, the total salaries paid, total salaries earned, the per cent of salary earned, and per cent of salary not earned.

TABLE VII.-Showing the number of employees in the classified civil service in the District of Columbia, distributed according to age, the total salaries paid, total salaries earned, the per cent of salary earned, and per cent of salary not earned—Continued.

It will be observed that the trend of the figures showing the per cent of salary earned is slightly downward from a very early age. This does not mean that, on the average, efficiency begins to decline from the earliest age given in the table, but it merely shows the effect of the present system of promoting employees with length of service without changing the character of their work. In order to take into account the loss growing out of this system of promotions, and the loss resulting from the practice of transferring the older clerks to work of a lower class without a corresponding reduction in salary, rating officers were requested to state the amount of salary earned by each clerk on the basis of "an efficient employee engaged on the class of work assigned to the employee rated," and an "efficient clerk" was defined to mean "such a clerk as the Government may reasonably require for the salary paid." It will be seen, therefore, that the loss reported and shown in the table as salary unearned is due to the present system of disregarding to a large extent the character of an employee's work in fixing his salary; i. e., of (a) increasing his salary with length of service without assigning him to a higher class of work; (b) of not decreasing his salary when by reason of his advanced age he is assigned to a lower grade of work; and (c) of not decreasing his salary when at any age he is found inefficient.

PER CENT OF SALARY EARNED AT VARIOUS AGES.

The per cent of salary earned at the various ages remains above 99 from the youngest age at which persons are employed in the classified service up to age 46, at which age the per cent of salary earned falls to 98.76. From age 46 to 51, inclusive, the per cent of salary earned remains at 98 and a fraction. From this point on, two increasing tendencies in the trend of the per cents are apparent—(a) an increase in the variation from year to year and (b) an increase in the per cent of salary unearned. The increasing variation from year to year is due to two causes-(a) the diminishing number of employees at the higher ages and (b) the increasing variation in the degree to which individuals retain their mental and physical activity as age advances. It is common observation that while some aged people retain their mental and physical activity, others are less fortunate.

AGE AT WHICH LOSS JUSTIFIES RETIREMENT.

One of the purposes of this inquiry was to ascertain at what age the amount of loss is sufficient to justify retirement. If no aid were to be given by the Government to employees below the ages at which the salary unearned would be sufficient to pay their entire annuities, it will be seen by reference to the foregoing table that the proper age of retirement (assuming that the schedules show the full loss sus42245-H. Doc. 732, 62-2-4

tained by the Government from superannuation) would perhaps be 85 years. Of the total salaries paid employees aged 85 years and over, they are reported to earn but 48.70 per cent. (See Table VII. p. 40.) It would seem apparent, therefore, that the Government would be the gainer by retiring all employees 85 years of age or over. on, say, half pay. The commission believes, however, that a plan of retirement which would provide only for people 85 years of age or over would be practically of no value, and that if the returns made by the departments had expressed the full loss due to superannuation, the results would have shown an immediate gain by retiring all persons at an age much below 85.

Viewed in this light, the commission holds that it would be in the interest of good administration to adopt some lower age than the one at which the loss from superannuation equals the cost of retirement. It is believed that the statistics justify the adoption of age 70 as the proper age of retirement for employees in the departmental service in Washington. This belief is based on three grounds: (1) The foregoing table shows that at age 70 the loss from superannuation is considerable (14.26 per cent); (2) an inquiry covering the employees in one of the large offices of the Government in which the work is of such a character as to be capable of accurate measurement, both as to quantity and quality, and where it is known that the officer at the head of the bureau undertook to answer the commission's inquiry by basing the returns on an accurate record of work performed, shows that employees 70 years of age and over earn but 56.31 per cent of the salaries paid them. In this office there are 33 employees 70 years of age and over, the total salaries paid them amount to $40,600, and of this amount they are reported as not earning $17,740. Each of these employees could therefore be retired on $600 a year at a total cost to the Government the first year, over and above the present loss, of but $2,060; (3) 70 years is the oldest age adopted by any foreign Government for the retirement of civil employees.

For these reasons the commission has adopted age 70 as the proper age for the retirement of employees in the classified service in Washington. The commission believes that age 70 would also be the proper age of retirement for most of the employees engaged in clerical and professional occupations in the various services outside of Washington. It is of course apparent that employees engaged in lines of work requiring special physical activity, such as that required of railway postal clerks, letter carriers, and persons employed in various mechanical trades, should be retired at an earlier age than 70 years. Earlier retirement for these classes of employment is justified because the physical energy usually begins to fail at an earlier age than does the mental.