SOCIAL SERVICE: Lump Sum

First U. S. wage earner to be registered for a Social Security Act pension at 65 was a 23-year-old Princeton graduate who remarked: “It’s a long way off” (TIME, Dec. 14). Last week the first U. S. wage earner to apply for a pension was one Ernest Ackerman, for 33 years a motorman for Cleveland Railway Co., who became 65 on Jan. 2. His wages for Jan. 1, day the pension plan went into effect, were $4.96, of which he paid 5¢ as the Social Security tax. For his pension, he claimed 32% of his total wages since the plan went into effect. This figures out as 17¢, or a profit of 12¢. Asking for it in a “lump sum,” Motorman Ackerman announced: “I’ll blow it on my friends.”