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History of the Blind in California
When in 1941 it became necessary to amend the Aid to the Needy Blind law to conform with amendments to the Social Security Act by deleting the exempt income provisions, a way was sought whereby those blind persons with plans for becoming Self-Supporting might be encouraged and assisted in working toward that goal. The result was the enactment by the 1941 legislature of the second program of public assistance for the blind, Aid to the Partially Self-supporting Blind Residents (later changed to Aid to the Potentially Self-Supporting blind), to be financed entirely by state and county funds. This second program resulted from recognition on the part of the legislature that maintenance alone is not sufficient for those blind persons who have a desire to achieve self-support that, in addition to providing for the physical necessities of life, these people need encouragement to utilize their productive capabilities and that this required the incentive of exempt income, especially from earnings. This program was and has remained over the past 28 years an innovation that is a plan of public assistance geared specifically to economic rehabilitation. The amount of exempt income has increased from $400 a year in 1941 to $800 in 1945 $1000 plus ½ over $1000 in 1950 $1200 plus ½ over $1200 in 1959 and $1500 plus one half over $1500 in 1963. Thus, California pioneered the now famous sliding scale of exempt income fully 10 years before it became a part of the Social Security Act.
Even though in 1960 Title X of the Social Security Act was amended by the Congress to provide for the exemption of $85 a month, thus permitting this provision to be placed in every states aid to the blind law, it should be noted that California’s Aid to the Potentially Self-Supporting Blind statute remained A far more effective instrument in assisting our immediate blind person to achieve a economic rehabilitation. This is true because- (1.) the annual basis for computing exempt income is preferable to the monthly basis of Aid to the Blind since there is considerable variation in monthly earnings, found particularly in self-employment enterprise; (2.) The Aid to the Potentially Self-Supporting Blind statute exempts income from all sources, not merely from earnings; and (3) The rigid real and other personal property limitations imposed by the Federal Government for Aid to the Blind makes it difficult for any blind person to achieve self-support through either a business or farm enterprise or from a professional practice, although the 1962 amendments exempting additional income and property for a twelve month period to implement plans for self-support (increased to thirty-six months in 1964) have alleviated this somewhat.
It is significant that the Congress, in enacting the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, lifted almost bodily from Title X of the Social Security Act the exemption of earnings insofar as title I and II of the acts are concerned.