Social Security Act
Steward Machine Company v. Davis |
The Social Security Act of 1935 is a law enacted by the
By 1930 the United States was the only modern industrial country without any national system of social security. In the midst of the Great Depression, the physician Francis Townsend galvanized support behind a proposal to issue direct payments to the elderly. Responding to that movement, Roosevelt organized a committee led by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins to develop a major social welfare program proposal. Roosevelt presented the plan in early 1935 and signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935. The act was upheld by the Supreme Court in two major cases decided in 1937.
The law established the Social Security program. The old-age program is funded by
Background and history
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 only modern industrial country in which people faced the Depression without any national system of social security, though a handful of states had poorly-funded old-age insurance programs.
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.
Titles
The Social Security Act has been amended significantly over time. The initial act had ten major titles, with Title XI outlining definitions and regulations. More titles were added as the Social Security Act was amended.
Title I—Old age
Title I is designed to give money to states to provide assistance to aged individuals.
Title II—Federal Reserve account
Title II establishes the Federal Reserve account used to pay for Social Security benefits and gives the Secretary of the Treasury the authority to invest excess reserves from the account.
Title III—Unemployment
Title III concerns unemployment insurance.
Title IV—Child aid
Title IV concerns Aid to Families with Dependent Children.
Title V—Child welfare
Title V concerns maternal and child welfare.
Title VI—Public health
Title VI concerns public health services (investigation of disease and problems of sanitation). It grants the Surgeon General the power to distribute money to the States for that purpose with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury.
Title VII—Social Security Board
Title VII establishes the Social Security Board and outlines that it is to be composed of three appointees chosen by the President and approved by the Senate and serving for six years.
Title VIII—Taxes with respect to employment
Title VIII establishes a payroll tax used to fund Social Security. In the amendments of 1939, the tax was removed from the Social Security Act, placed in the Internal Revenue Code, and renamed the Federal Insurance Contributions Act. When Medicare was established in 1966, the FICA tax was increased to fund that program as well.
Title IX—Tax on employers of eight or more
Title IX establishes an
Title X—Blindness
Title X concerns support for blind people.[21]
Title XI—General Provisions, Peer Review, Progressive Sampling, and Administrative Simplification
Title XII—Advances to State Unemployment Funds
Title XIII—Reconversion Unemployment Benefits for Seamen
Title XIV—Grants to States for Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled
Title XV—Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees
Title XVI—Grants to States for Aid to the Aged, Blind, or Disabled
Title XVI—Supplemental Security Income for the Aged, Blind, and Disabled
Title XVI establishes and concerns Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
Title XVII—Grants for Planning Comprehensive Action to Combat Mental Retardation
Title XVIII—Health Insurance for the Aged and Disabled
Title XVIII establishes and concerns Medicare.
Title XIX—Grants to States for Medical Assistance Programs
Title XIX establishes and concerns Medicaid.
Title XX—Block Grants to States for Social Services
Title XX establishes the rules for state-specific shares of the federal cap according to a formula.[22]
Title XXI—State Children's Health Insurance Program
Title XXI establishes and concerns CHIP.
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Amendments
Social Security Act Amendments of 1939
H.R.6635 Approved, August 10, 1939, Public Law 76-379
Expansion of benefits
The original Act provided for only one Federally-administered benefit: Old-Age Insurance, which was paid only to the insured worker. The 1939 Amendments transformed the very nature of the Social Security program. The Amendments created two new benefit categories under §202 of the Act:
- Payments to the spouse and children of a retired worker called dependents or family benefits, a provision of Old-Age Insurance.
- Payments to the family of an insured worker in the event of the premature death of the worker, called survivors benefits, the provision of the then-newly created Survivors Insurance program.
Retirement-aged wives, children under 16 (under 18 if attending school), widowed mothers caring for eligible children, and aged widows were all made eligible for dependents and survivors benefits.
Under select circumstances, parents of deceased insured workers were also made eligible for Survivors Insurance. To be eligible parents must be at least age 65, not entitled to Old-Age Insurance, wholly dependent upon the insured worker for income, and mustn't have married since the death of the insured worker. Furthermore, the parent(s) are not eligible if the deceased insured worker leaves a widow or unmarried surviving child under the age of 18.
The 1939 Amendments also increased benefit amounts and accelerated the start of monthly benefit payments from 1940 to 1942.
Alternation of financing mechanisms
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War Mobilization and Reconversion Act of 1944
S.2051 Approved, October 3, 1944
Public Law 78-458
Title XII
Social Security Act Amendments of 1946
H.R.7037 Approved, August 10, 1946 Public Law 79-719
Title XIII
Social Security Act Amendments of 1950
H.R.6000 Approved August 28, 1950 Public Law 81-734
These amendments raised benefits for the very 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
Approved June 28, 1952 Public Law 82-420
Social Security Act Amendments of 1952
H.R.7800 Approved, July 18, 1952 Public Law 82-590
Social Security Act Amendments of 1954
H.R.9366 Approved September 1, 1954 Public Law 83-761
H.R.9709
Approved September 1, 1954 Public Law 83-767
Title XV
Maternal and Child Health and Mental Retardation Planning Amendments of 1963
H.R.7544 Approved, October 24, 1963 Public Law 88-156
Title XVII
Social Security Amendments of 1965
H.R.6675 Approved, July 30, 1965 Public Law 89-97
Title XVIII Title XIX
Constitutional litigation
In the 1930s, the
Chief Justice
Records show Roberts had indicated his desire to overturn the Adkins decision two days after oral arguments concluded for the Parrish case on December 19, 1936.
US Supreme Court cases
Two Supreme Court rulings affirmed the constitutionality of the Social Security Act.
- unemployment-compensationfund, the federal government was essentially forcing each state to establish an unemployment-compensation fund that would meet its criteria and that the federal government had no power to enact such a program.
- Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619 (1937), decided on the same day as Steward, upheld the program: "The proceeds of both [employee and employer] taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like internal-revenue taxes generally, and are not earmarked in any way." That is, the Social Security Tax was constitutional as a mere exercise of Congress's general taxation powers.
Other cases
- Flemming v. Nestor, 363 US 603 (1960) upholding §1104, allowing Congress to itself amend and revise the schedule of benefits. Further, however, recipients of benefits had no contractual rights to them.
- Goldberg v. Kelly 397 US 254 (1970) William Brennan Jr. held there must be an evidentiary hearing before a recipient can be deprived of government benefits under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld (1975) held that a male widower should be entitled to his deceased wife's benefit just as a female widow was entitled to a deceased husband's, under the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Impact
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In 1940, Social Security benefits paid totaled $35 million and rose to $961 million in 1950, $11.2 billion in 1960, $31.9 billion in 1970, $120.5 billion in 1980, and $247.8 billion in 1990 (all figures in nominal dollars, not adjusted for inflation). In 2004, $492 billion of benefits were paid to 47.5 million beneficiaries.[29] In 2009, nearly 51 million Americans received $650 billion in Social Security benefits.
During the 1950s, those over 65 continued to have the highest poverty rate of any age group in the US with the largest percentage of the nation's wealth concentrated in the hands of Americans under 35. By 2010, that figure had dramatically reversed itself with the largest percentage of wealth being in the hands of Americans 55–75 and those under 45 being among the poorest. Elder poverty, once a normal sight, had thus become rare by the 21st century.[30]
Reflecting the continuing importance of the Social Security Act, biographer Kenneth S. Davis described the Social Security Act "the most important single piece of social legislation in all American history."[31]
See also
- US labor law
- List of Social Security legislation (United States)
References
- ^ "History 1930". Social Security Administration. Retrieved May 21, 2009.
- ^ Butler, Chris. ""The Social Impact of Industrialization," The Flow of History". Flow of History. Retrieved October 24, 2016.
- ^ Kennedy 1999, p. 260.
- ^ McJimsey 2000, p. 105.
- ^ Kennedy 1999, p. 261.
- ^ McJimsey 2000, pp. 105–107.
- ^ Kennedy 1999, pp. 257–258, 371.
- ^ Work Without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work by Benjamin Hunnicutt, 1988, P.221
- ^ Kennedy 1999, pp. 262–266.
- ^ Kennedy 1999, pp. 270–271.
- ^ McJimsey 2000, p. 108.
- ^ Quadagno, Jill (1994). The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 7.
- ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved April 2, 2021.
- )
- ^ "NAACP | Viewing Social Security Through The Civil Rights Lens". NAACP. August 14, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2021.
- ^ McJimsey 2000, p. 107.
- ^ Kennedy 1999, pp. 267–269.
- ^ Kennedy 1999, pp. 271–272.
- ^ Retiring Men Manhood, Labor, and Growing Old in America, 1900-1960 By Gregory Wood, 2012, P.100
- ISBN 978-0547175607.
- ^ Achene, Andrew (1986). Social Security Visions and Revisions. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 25-6.
- ^ Illinois Department of Human Services. "Title XX Social Services Reports". Retrieved July 6, 2023.
- ^ Supremecourthistory.org Archived October 6, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Social Security Administration". Ssa.gov. Retrieved September 11, 2011.
- ^ Henretta, James A. (Spring 2006). "Charles Evans Hughes and the Strange Death of Liberal America". Law and History Review/History Cooperative. Archived from the original on April 27, 2009. Retrieved September 15, 2019.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ 298 U.S. 587 (1936)
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8232-2154-7.
- ^ "Steward Machine Company vs. Davis, 301 U.S, 548". Archived from the original on November 28, 2005. Retrieved December 3, 2005.
- ^ p. 19 Archived December 29, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Curse of the Young Old". Washingtonpost.com. Retrieved November 19, 2021.
- ^ Kennedy 1999, p. 273.
Bibliography
- Bethell, Thomas N. "Roosevelt Redux." American Scholar 74.2 (2005): 18–31 online, a popular account.
- Ikenberry, G. John. and Theda Skocpol, "Expanding social benefits: The role of social security." Political Science Quarterly 102.3 (1987): 389–416. online
- Kennedy, David M. (1999). Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195038347.
- McJimsey, George (2000). The Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1012-9.
External links
- As codified in 42 U.S.C. chapter 7 of the United States Code from LII
- As codified in 42 U.S.C. chapter 7 of the United States Code from the US House of Representatives
- As amended in the GPO Statute Compilations collection
- Title I Grants to States for Old-Age Assistance for The Aged (PDF/details)
- Title II Federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Benefits (PDF/details)
- Title III Grants to States for Unemployment Compensation Administration (PDF/details)
- Title IV Grants to States for Aid and Services to Needy Families with Children and for Child-Welfare Services (PDF/details)
- Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant (PDF/details)
- Title VI Coronavirus Relief, Fiscal Recovery, and Critical Capital Projects Funds (PDF/details)
- Title VII Administration (PDF/details)
- Title VIII Special Benefits for Certain World War II Veterans (PDF/details)
- Title IX Miscellaneous Provisions Relating to Employment Security (PDF/details)
- Title XI General Provisions, Peer Review, and Administrative Simplification (PDF/details)
- Title XII Advances to State Unemployment Funds (PDF/details)
- Title XVI Supplemental Security Income for The Aged, Blind, and Disabled (PDF/details)
- Title XVII Grants for Planning Comprehensive Action to Combat Mental Retardation (PDF/details)
- Title XVIII Health Insurance for The Aged and Disabled (PDF/details)
- Title XIX Grants to States for Medical Assistance Programs (PDF/details)
- Title XX Block Grants and Programs for Social Services and Elder Justice (PDF/details)
- Title XXI State Children's Health Insurance Program (PDF/details)