Who are the "aged"? They are the eighteen million Americans of sixty-five or over who make up over nine per cent of our nation's population.' Of these over ten million are women and almost eight million are men: 16.7 million are white and 1.4 million are non-white. 2 Of those between the ages of sixty-five and seventy-four, 78.9 per cent of the men and 45.7 per cent of the women are married; of those over seventy-five, 57.1 per cent of the men and 20.2 per cent of the women are married. 3 The

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... ree million people over sixty-five in 1900 will have increased to over twenty-five million by 1985. 4 The objective of this Comment is to suggest a national policy for the economic problems of the aged and to propose specific statutory changes to effectuate this policy. Of course, the need for a new policy must first be established; this need will be demonstrated through an examination of the present financial position of the aged. The crux of the proposals to be offered is that the aged will receive greater assistance from the federal government but through more efficient channels than in the past. Both the social security machinery and the federal income tax will be utilized to this end.