Assets owned by white and Negro retirees, and by owners
and renters in retirement are as characteristically different
(Table 14) as for pre-retirement families (Table 2). Evidence
that total net assets and pre-retirement family incomes are
related and that this association continues into retirement was
supported by incomes received by Florida families in the re-
tirement- age brackets. For those whose net assets were $5,000
or less, their average retirement family income was $1,800,
of which $400 consisted of OAA payments. Those in the asset
category of $5,000 to $9,999 reported an annual family income
of $2,427, of which $342 was from OAA. Persons reporting the
ownership of $10,000 or more in assets received a $3,637 annual
income in 1963, none of which was derived from OAA monies.
The virture of thrift and/or ability to save thus appears to
have deferred monetary rewards (3).


 Table 14. Selected economic attributes of 80
aged 65 and over, Florida, 1964.


rural families, male heads


 Respondents
 Economic Attributes
 White Negro Both
 per cent
 Home tenure: ...................... All 100.0 100.0 100.0
 Owners 81.0 70.6 78.8
 Renters, other non-owners 19.0 29.4 21.2
 Sources of family income, 1963:*
 Retirement benefits and payments 96.8 94.1 96.2
 Returns from assets 41.3 17.6 36.3-
 Employment of wife 14.3 29.4 17.5
 Employment of husband 9.5 5.9 8.7
 All others 6.3 11.8 7.5
 Family income, 1963: dollars
 Home owners 2,682 1,782 2,493
 Renters, other non-owners 1,480 1,138 1,379
 Average, all families 2,445 1,550 2,212
 Family assets, 1964:
 Home owners 12,432 4,966 10,931
 Renters, other non-owners 1,329 428 1,064
 Average, all families 10,317 3,394 8,834
 Number of families 63 17 80
 *Some families reported more than one source of income. Thus, percentages do not
 add to 100.

 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
 The Southern Regional Project, S-56, upon which the fore-
going findings were based, was designed to ascertain among
other things, what economic provisions rural Southern families
were making for retirement, if any. In 1964, interview records