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Captain Robert A. Stone - 6      September 14, 1948

(4) There were several reasons why it seemed desirable to limit annuities to pilots disqualified to those who had had ten years of service. First, the only other major Congressional plan having retirement for disqualification limited to the regular occupation - the Railroad Retirement Act - provided for a 20-year service period. It took one and a half million railroad workers more than ten years to get that provision; and it was very bitterly opposed by the railroads. I should think a more pertinent question would be whether 7,000 pilots are well advised, in their first effort, to attempt to get for themselves more than the railroad workers were able to get after ten years- and a dozen or more bills. A second reason has to do with cost limitation. That factor is not of great importance because there are relatively few disabilities at ages under 31 or 32; that is, the ages in which most pilots are in their first ten years of service. However, every additional 1.5 per cent of payroll (and this would be the extra cost on the scale used in the estimates) adds that much more to the difficulties of enactment. Third, Congress normally legislates with respect to problems, the existence of which are established beyond question. If there is a major problem relating to the disqualification of pilots having less than ten years of service, it did not show up in the returns made by pilots on the schedules distributed in the last half of 1947. The cost figures were based on a modification of the railroad disability experience.

(5) The answer to the first half of this question is in general the answer which has just been given. Under the Railroad Retirement Act, until 1946, the requirements for payment of an annuity to a person who was totally disabled for any and every kind of occupation was either (a) 30 years of service, or (b) age 60, the pension in the latter case being reduced by 1/180 for each month by which the age of the pensioner was under 65 when he retired. After over ten years of experience under the Act, this service requirement was reduced from 30 to 10, with the age remaining unchanged, though the reduction in the pension was eliminated. The requirement in most of the Congressionally enacted plans (Civil Service, including the Congressmen themselves; Canal Zone; Alaska Railroad; the Foreign Service officers, the latter having no service requirement for service-connected disabilities) is five years. 

There are several Federal Governmental plans not specifically approved by Congress--those for the Federal Reserve System; examiners in the office of the Comptroller of the Currency; and civilian employees of the Naval Academy. All those provide for five year's service as prerequisite for a disability pension except in the case of the examiners for the Comptroller of the Currency. In the latter case the requirement is one year. This liberality is probably due to the fact that the national banks of the United States must pay the bills for whatever salaries and retirement allowances are fixed by the Comptroller of the Currency. This arrangement is unique and unlikely to be duplicated.