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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TideGlider who wrote (984849)

12/1/2016 1:59:14 AM

From: koan

Respond to of 1571928

Why don't you take a minute to read this and learn something about good human beings doing things to help people!

ssa.gov

Foundations of Change

By the end of the First World War, a primarily agrarian American society had become a primarily urban, industrialized one. Thus, on the eve of the Great Depression of the 1930's, a larger proportion of the American people were dependent on cash wages for their support than ever before. By 1932, however, unemployment reached 34 percent of the nonagricultural workforce. Between 1929 and 1932, national income dropped by 43 percent, per capita income by 19 percent. By the mid-1930's, the lifetime savings of millions of people had been wiped out.

For vast numbers of aged people, and people nearing old age, the loss of their savings brought with it the prospect of living their remaining years in destitution. At the height of the Depression, many old people were literally penniless. One-third to one-half of the aged were dependent on family or friends for support. The poor houses and other relief agencies that existed at the time to assist people who had fallen on hard times were financed mainly from charity and local funds. They could not begin--either financially or conceptually--to respond adequately to the special needs of the aged brought about by the cataclysmic events of the Depression.


Before Social Security, many people faced destitution in old age

Although by 1934, 30 States had responded by providing pensions for the needy aged, total expenditures for State programs for the aged that year were $31 million--an average of $19.74 a month per aged person. As the Depression worsened, benefits to individuals were cut further to enable States to spread available funds among as many people as possible.

Various national schemes to provide income to the aged received substantial attention. These included the Townsend Old-Age Revolving Pension Plan and a plan called "Share the Wealth" advanced by Louisiana Senator Huey P. Long.

Under the Townsend plan, every American over age 60 was to get a monthly pension, provided he or she did not work and promised to spend the entire payment during the month. Under Long's plan, large personal fortunes would be liquidated to finance (1) pensions for the aged and (2) cash payments to every family sufficient to buy a home, a car, and radio.

Due in large part to the public and congressional pressures for some Federal response to the chaotic conditions of the time, in June 1934, a Committee on Economic Security was established by Executive Order of President Franklin Roosevelt. This Cabinet-level Committee, chaired by Frances Perkins, the Secretary of Labor, was given the task of developing constructive, long-term proposals for the prevention of all the major causes of economic insecurity. Given the desperate conditions of the time, the Committee's major attention was focused on programs to protect the unemployed. Yet, amid some controversy about the feasibility and constitutionality of such a plan, there developed from the work of the Committee a proposal for compulsory, contributory old-age insurance, which was ultimately enacted as part of the Social Security Act.

The Social Security Act, enacted on August 14, 1935, provided a new federally administered system of social insurance for the aged financed through payroll taxes paid by employees and their employers. Under the system, which applied only to workers in commerce and industry, people would earn retirement benefit eligibility as they worked. With some exceptions, benefits would be related to workers' average covered earnings, and workers could not have earnings and still be eligible for benefits. No benefits were provided for spouses or children, and lump-sum refunds were provided to the estates of workers who died before age 65 or before receiving at least the equivalent in benefits of their taxes plus interest. Collection of payroll taxes began in 1937, and benefit payments were scheduled to begin in 1942.

The Early Years

Even as the Social Security legislation moved through the Congress in the late winter and spring of 1935, it was acknowledged by many supporters that the old-age program then under