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TheSocial Security Act of 1935is a law enacted by the74th United States Congressand signed into law byPresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt. The law created theSocial Securityprogram, establishing a basic right to a pension in old age, as well as insurance againstunemployment. The law was part of Roosevelt'sNew Dealdomestic program.
By the 1930s, the United States was the lone modern industrial country without any national system of social security. In the midst of theGreat Depression, physicianFrancis Townsendgalvanized support behind a proposal to issue direct payments to the elderly. Responding to this movement, Roosevelt organized a committee led by Secretary of LaborFrances Perkinsto develop a major social welfare program proposal. Roosevelt presented the plan in early 1935, and he signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935. The act was upheld by theSupreme Courtin two major cases decided in 1937.
The law established the Social Security program, an old-age pension program funded by payroll taxes. Over the ensuing decades, Social Security program contributed to a dramatic decline in poverty among the elderly, while spending on Social Security became a major part of the federal budget. The Social Security Act also established anunemployment insuranceprogram administered by the states, as well as theAid to Dependent Childrenprogram, which provided aid to families headed by single mothers. The law was later amended by acts such as theSocial Security Amendments of 1965, which established two major healthcare programs,MedicareandMedicaid.
Contents
Background andhistory[edit]
Further information:History of Social Security in the United StatesandHistory of health care reform in the United States
Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law, August 14, 1935.
Industrialization and the urbanization in the 20th Century created many new social problems, and transformed ideas of how society and the government should function together because of them. As industry expanded, cities grew quickly to keep up with demand for labor. Tenement houses were built quickly and poorly, cramming new migrants from farms and Southern and Eastern European immigrants into tight and unhealthy spaces. Work spaces were even more unsafe.[2]
By the 1930s, the United States was the lone modern industrial country where people faced the Depression without any national system of social security, though a handful of states had poorly-funded old-age insurance programs.[3]The federal government had provided pensions to veterans in the aftermath of the Civil War and other wars, and some states had established voluntary old-age pension systems, but otherwise the United States had little experience withsocial insuranceprograms.[4]For most American workers,retirementdue to old age was not a realistic option.[5]In the 1930s, physicianFrancis Townsendgalvanized support for his pension proposal, which called for the federal government to issue direct $200-a-month payments to the elderly.[6]Roosevelt was attracted to the general thinking behind Townsend's plan because it would provide for those no longer capable of working while at the same time stimulating demand in the economy and decreasing the supply of labor.[7]In 1934, Roosevelt charged the Committee on Economic Security, chaired by Secretary of LaborFrances Perkins, with developing an old-age pension program, anunemployment insurancesystem, and anational health careprogram. The proposal for a national health care system was dropped, but the committee developed an unemployment insurance program largely administered by the states. The committee also developed an old-age plan that, at Roosevelt's insistence, would be funded by individual contributions from workers.[8]
In January 1935, Roosevelt proposed the Social Security Act, which he presented as a more practical alternative to the Townsend Plan. After a series of congressional hearings, the Social Security Act became law in August 1935.[9]During the congressional debate over Social Security, the program was expanded to provide payments to widows and dependents of Social Security recipients.[10]Job categories that were not covered by the act included workers in agricultural labor, domestic service, government employees, and many teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians, and social workers.[11]The program was funded through a newly established a payroll tax which later became known as theFederal Insurance Contributions Act tax. Social Security taxes would be collected from employers by the states, with employers and employees contributing equally to the tax.[12]Because the Social Security tax wasregressive, and Social Security benefits were based on how much each individual had paid into the system, the program would not contribute to income redistribution in the way that some reformers, including Perkins, had hoped.[13]In addition to creating the Social Security program, the Social Security Act also established a state-administered unemployment insurance system and theAid to Dependent Childrenprogram, which provided aid to families headed by single mothers.[14]Compared with the social security systems in western European countries, the Social Security Act of 1935 was rather conservative. But for the first time the federal government took responsibility for the economic security of the aged, the temporarily unemployed, dependent children and the handicapped.[15]
Titles[edit]
The Social Security Act has been amended significantly over time, but contains ten major titles.
Title I—oldage[edit]
Title I is designed to give money to states to provide assistance to aged individuals
Title III—unemployment[edit]
Title III concerns unemployment insurance
Title IV—childaid[edit]
Title IV concernsAid to Families with Dependent Children.
Title V—childwelfare[edit]
Title V concerns Maternal and Child Welfare.
Title VI—publichealth[edit]
Title VI concerns public health services (investigation of disease and problems of sanitation)
Title X—blindness[edit]
Title X concerns support for blind people.[16]
Title XI—General Provisions, Peer Review, and AdministrativeSimplification[edit]
Title XII—Advances to State UnemploymentFunds[edit]
Title XIII—Reconversion Unemployment Benefits forSeamen[edit]
Title XIV—Grants to States for Aid to the Permanently and TotallyDisabled[edit]
Title XV—Unemployment Compensation for FederalEmployees[edit]
Title XVI—Grants to States for Aid to the Aged, Blind, orDisabled[edit]
Title XVI—Supplemental Security Income for the Aged, Blind, andDisabled[edit]
Title XVII—Grants for Planning Comprehensive Action to Combat MentalRetardation[edit]
Title XVIII—Health Insurance for the Aged andDisabled[edit]
Title XIX—Grants to States for Medical AssistancePrograms[edit]
Title XX—Block Grants to States for SocialServices[edit]
Title XXI—State Children's Health InsuranceProgram[edit]
Amendments[edit]
Social Security Act Amendments of 1939[edit]
H.R.6635 Approved, August 10, 1939 Public Law 76-379
Amendments of 1939: The original Act provided only retirement benefits, and only to the worker. The 1939 Amendments made a fundamental change in the Social Security program. The Amendments added two new categories of benefits: payments to the spouse and minor children of a retired worker (called dependents benefits) andsurvivorsbenefits paid to the family in the event of the premature death of the worker. The 1939 Amendments also increased benefit amounts and accelerated the start of monthly benefit payments from 1940 to 1942.
War Mobilization and Reconversion Act of 1944[edit]
S.2051 Approved, October 3, 1944 Public Law 78-458
Title XII
Social Security Act Amendments of 1946[edit]
H.R.7037 Approved, August 10, 1946 Public Law 79-719
Title XIII
Social Security Act Amendments of 1950[edit]
H.R.6000 Approved August 28, 1950 Public Law 81-734
These amendments raised benefits for the first time and placed the program on the road to the virtually universal coverage it has today. Specifically it is the introduction of the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).
H.R.6291[edit]
Approved June 28, 1952 Public Law 82-420
Social Security Act Amendments of 1952[edit]
H.R.7800 Approved, July 18, 1952 Public Law 82-590
Social Security Act Amendments of 1954[edit]
H.R.9366 Approved September 1, 1954 Public Law 83-761
H.R.9709[edit]
Approved September 1, 1954 Public Law 83-767
Title XV
Maternal and Child Health and Mental Retardation Planning Amendments of 1963[edit]
H.R.7544 Approved, October 24, 1963 Public Law 88-156
Title XVII
Social Security Amendments of 1965[edit]
H.R.6675 Approved, July 30, 1965 Public Law 89-97
Title XVIII Title XIX
Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Act
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