F. D. ROOSEVELT'S NEW DEAL, 'THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT'

The Social Security Act of 1935

Today, The Grandma is still at home. She is reading some news about the future of some social benefits and she thinks that winter is coming for social rights. A new economical crisis is emerging and, as always, the weakest people are going to pay the party, in y¡that case unemployed and retired ones.

On a day like today in 1935, a law enacted by the 74th United States Congress and signed into law by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was approved, the Social Security Act of 1935, a law that was part of Roosevelt's New Deal domestic program that tried to rose up American economy and employment.

The Grandma wants to talk about this law to remember that the most important thing for a government is the protection of its citizens and the creation of labour opportunities and the distribution of richness between all of them.

The Social Security Act of 1935 is a law enacted by the 74th United States Congress and signed into law by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The law created the Social Security program as well as insurance against unemployment. The law was part of Roosevelt's New Deal domestic program.

By the 1930s, 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.

More information: Social Security Administration

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 payroll taxes, and over the ensuing decades, it contributed to a dramatic decline in poverty among the elderly, and spending on Social Security became a major part of the federal budget.

The Social Security Act also established an unemployment insurance program administered by the states and the Aid to Dependent Children program, which provided aid to families headed by single mothers.

The Social Security Act, 1935

The law was later amended by acts such as the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which established two major healthcare programs: Medicare and Medicaid.

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.

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.

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 with social insurance programs. For most American workers, retirement during old age was not a realistic option.

In the 1930s, the physician Francis Townsend galvanized support for his pension proposal, which called for the federal government to issue direct $200-a-month payments to the elderly. Roosevelt was attracted to the general thinking behind Townsend's plan because it would provide for those no longer capable of working, stimulate demand in the economy, and decrease the supply of labor.

More information: Our Documents

In 1934, Roosevelt charged the Committee on Economic Security, chaired by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, with developing an old-age pension program, an unemployment insurance system, and a national health care program.

The proposal for a national health care system was dropped, but the committee developed an unemployment insurance program that would be largely administered by the states. The committee also developed an old-age plan; at Roosevelt's insistence, it would be funded by individual contributions from workers.

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.

During the congressional debate over Social Security, the program was expanded to provide payments to widows and dependents of Social Security recipients. 

The Social Security Act, 1935

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.

The program was funded through a newly-established payroll tax, which later became known as the Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax.

Social Security taxes would be collected from employers by the states, with employers and employees contributing equally to the tax. Because the Social Security tax was regressive, 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.

In addition to creating the program, the Social Security Act also established a state-administered unemployment insurance system and the Aid to Dependent Children, which provided aid to families headed by single mothers.

Compared with the social security systems in Western Europe, the Social Security Act of 1935 was rather conservative. However, it was the first time that the federal government took responsibility for the economic security of the aged, the temporarily unemployed, dependent children, and the handicapped.

More information: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

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. 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.

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.

More information: History

The program for social security that is now pending

before the Congress is a necessary part of the future

unemployment policy of the government.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

ALBERT EINSTEIN'S HIDDEN STORY IN IRELAND

Albert Einstein in Ireland

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879-18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. He developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics, alongside quantum mechanics. Einstein's work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. Einstein is best known in popular culture for his mass, energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which has been dubbed the world's most famous equation. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory.

More information: The Journal

Ireland has a proud history of neutrality and it is perhaps for this reason much of the details of Albert Einstein’s 1941 visit to Ireland has been erased from the history books.

What was to be but a short two day visit lasted three months and resulted in the construction of Ireland’s first and only nuclear bomb. Now, The Grandma brings you the true story of Einstein’s visit to these shores and the weapon of mass destruction he built for us.

The world's most famous equation

Famed for his passion for pacifism, Einstein was compelled to visit Ireland and see its neutrality first hand while en route to a series of lectures he was to give at Oxford University in England.

The Taoiseach of the day Eamon de Valera learned of Einstein’s passage to Ireland and invited him to an evening of conversation and conviviality in Dublin.

De Valera laid on a most impressive feast for his guest considering the lack of quality produce available in Ireland during wartime which Einstein greatly appreciated. They toured Dublin’s great whorehouses, not to partake in such practices, but having become wearied by the carrying around loose change all evening they decided to divest themselves of it while helping the local economy.

More information: The Irish Times

The Taoiseach made several requests of Einstein that evening, asking the great physicist to look into creating the most aerodynamically perfect hurley, which he would then send only to the Clare senior hurling team but Einstein declined.

Albert Einstein

After a detour into a noted and infamous opium emporium Einstein claimed to have witnessed visions of great cataclysmic horrors brought forth by war, de Valera too saw troubling sites in his hallucinations; a capital city obsessed with decent lattes and pulled pork.

Truly frightened of what he thought would be a Nazi reign of hipster culture de Valera struck Einstein in the head with an aerodynamically inferior hurley, knocking him out cold.

Einstein would wake in chains in a room de Valera had nicknamed An Dearg Seomra. It was here DeValera made demands of Einstein to create the basis of a foolproof defence against the Nazis: the atomic bomb.

The world famous physicist was forced to work around the clock for days on end until he completed a bomb of terrifying capabilities surviving only on a diet of chomp bars and Guinness.

Albert Einstein

Upon completion of the device Einstein was liberated and carried on his travels to Oxford, leaving de Valera in charge of the bomb along with its security code. In an act of defiance Einstein instituted a code that would irk de Valera: Michael Collins is da best.

The bomb as you may know remained unused as Hitler and his regime were ultimately defeated, but curiously de Valera had stated he would only use the bomb in the event of the Nazis occupying England as it would have hit two birds with one stone.

Subsequent political generations have kept these events as secretive as possible, but when some newspapers began sniffing around the story in the late 90s the Government of the day decided it was best to hide the bomb from public view.

The exact location of the warhead is not known, but it is probably not a coincidence that after quelling the story in the papers they would announce the construction of the Spire the following day.

More information: Biography.com

Try not to become a man of success, 

but rather try to become a man of value.

Albert Einstein