An equitable system of income distribution is needed for the many indigent persons unable to benefit from skill enrichment programs, full employment, or job upgrading. Such persons include the aged, mothers with dependent children, and physically or mentally ill individuals. Present public welfare departments, which offer a form of income distribution, are inadequate because they do not try to reach the many people eligible for their services. Also, those people who do receive welfare are demoralized by inadequate budgets and by such administrative practices as the post-midnight investigations of clients' homes. The lives of these poor are virtually controlled by a 'professional elite' who run the welfare department and other bureaucratic public agencies like the housing authority and the schools. It is particularly important for educators to realize that welfare children, burdened by both psychological degradation and material deprivation, are not likely to learn in school. (LB)