Below are all the articles relating to Social Security

  • "Social Security:" Origin of the TermAbraham Epstein is credited with recommending the use of the term Social Security: Epstein, Frankel said, was in the process of “...establishing a national organization to spread the gospel of old age assistance throughout the United States. . . the proposed American Old Age Pension Association. When I heard the word pension’ it did not sit so well with me, knowing that at that moment the word had a connotation of politically radical action which challenged the established order. I told Epstein I would not use the word pension. He naturally asked me what word I would suggest. I thought for a moment and simply said: ‘security’.”
  • Social Security Act of 1935On August 15, 1935, the Social Security Act established a system of old-age benefits for workers, benefits for victims of industrial accidents, unemployment insurance, aid for dependent mothers and children, the blind, and the physically handicapped.
  • Social Security: A Brief History of Social InsuranceAs we know today when enacted, social security neither damaged the liberty of the citizen nor eliminated the voluntary aspects of community action. Instead, it provided a support that invigorated both. But earlier in this century, social insurance had to contend with the idealization of voluntary institutions which are deeply rooted in the United States. Voluntary associations performed the function of mediating between the individual and mass society and Government.
  • Social Security: A Radio Address by Frances Perkins, 1935Barely a month after President Roosevelt presented the Report of the Committee on Economic Security to the Congress, along with the Administration's draft Economic Security Bill, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins went on a national radio broadcast to explain the Administration's proposals to the American people. This was one of the earliest popular explanations of what would become the Social Security program.
  • Social Security: An Introduction“Social Security” is the term commonly used to describe the federal retirement benefit program created by Title II of the Social Security Act of 1935. Title II, labeled FEDERAL OLD-AGE BENEFITS, created a “universal contributory social insurance” program designed to protect workers and their families against loss of income due to retirement or the death of a wage earner. Initially, to be eligible for Social Security a wage earner must have worked in covered employment, earned at least $2,000 and attained the age of 65. (Note: Initially, “covered employment” was very narrowly defined, limited mainly to paid work in manufacturing and commerce. As described in Section 210 below, large segments of the working population were exempt from coverage.)
  • Social Security: Early HistoryMan's quest for economic security is as old and as continuous as our records of human life itself. Evidence of it is to be found in the most primitive people's attempts to shift from a hunting economy to settled agriculture. it can be seen among early urban societies in projects to store grain for lean years. It appears in classical antiquity in policies to provide bread for the needy. It is exemplified in the middle ages by the lords assuming some responsibility for the welfare of their vassals. It is visible in early modern times in poor laws, charity workshops, poor farms and the philanthropic activities of religious organizations.
  • Social Security: Old Age Survivors Insurance ProgramsSocial security is the term commonly used to describe the Old Age, Survivors Insurance program (OASI) created by Title II of the Social Security Act of 1935. The original OASDI legislation was developed as one part of the federal response to the economic vulnerabilities of workers and their families revealed by the Great Depression of the 1930s.
  • Social Security: Organizational History of SSAThe Social Security Administration (SSA) began in 1935. It became a sub-cabinet agency in 1939, and returned full-circle to independent status in 1995. Throughout the years, arguments had been heard in the halls of Congress that SSA should be returned to independent agency status. This debate was given impetus in 1981 when the National Commission on Social Security recommended that SSA once again become an independent Social Security Board.
  • Social Security: The Roosevelt AdministrationPresident Franklin Delano Roosevelt's philosophy was: that Government has a positive responsibility for the general welfare. Not that Government itself must do everything, but that everything practicable must be done. A critical question for F.D.R. was whether a middle way was possible-- a mixed system which might give the State more power than conservatives would like, enough power indeed to assure economic and social security, but still not so much as to create dictatorship.
  • Social Security: Unemployment Insurance“The fundamental case for unemployment protection lies in the fact that under a democratic form of society we are forced to prevent any large-scale starvation. Funds must be provided somehow . . . It is practical sense to build a system which will gather the funds in good times and disburse them in bad times. This simple theory underlies all formal proposals for unemployment insurance, for unemployment reserves.” Stanley King in American Labor Legislation Review, December 1933, p. 170.