Did Congress Steal Money From Social Security

A limited form of the Sociable Security program began as a beat to apply "social group insurance" during the Depression of the 1930s, when poverty rates among senior citizens exceeded 50 percent.^[1]

The Interpersonal Certificate Act was enacted Noble 14, 1935. The Act was drafted during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term by the President's Committee along Economic Security, under Frances Perkins, and passed by Congress every bit part of the New Deal. The Act was an try to set what were seen as dangers in the modern American life, including old age, poverty, unemployment, and the burdens of widows and fatherless children. Aside sign language this Pursue Honourable 14, 1935, President Roosevelt became the first United States President to preach federal assistance for the elderly.^[3]

The Act provided benefits to retirees and the jobless, and a chunk-add together benefit at death. Payments to current retirees are financed aside a payroll tax on current workers' payoff, half directly A a payroll task and half paying by the employer (self-exploited people are responsible the entire payroll tax). The act as wel gave money to states to provide assist to aged individuals (Title I), for unemployment insurance (Deed III), Aid to Families with Dependent Children (Title IV), Maternal and Child Social welfare (Championship V), public health services (Title VI), and the blind (Title X).^[3]

Origins and design [edit]

In his unsuccessful 1932 campaign for governor of Louisiana, enterpriser and politico Dudley J. Leblanc planned a monthly stipend for the elderly. Huey Long witnessed the popularity of the idea with Louisiana voters, and subsequently adopted it in his national platform.^[4]

Political Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, including Edwin Witte, known as the "Beget of Social Security," Chester Alan Arthur J. Altmeyer, and Wilbur Cohen developed the 1934 proposal for a federally funded pension plan.

This idea was advanced popularized away Francis Townsend in 1933, and the influence of the "Francis Everett Townsend Plan" movement on argumentation over social security persisted into the 1950s.^[5] ^[6] Early debates connected Social Security's intention centered on how the computer programme's benefits should be funded. Some believed that benefits to individuals should be funded by contributions that they themselves had made over the course of their careers. Others argued that this design would disfavor those who had already begun their careers at the time of the broadcast's implementation because they would not suffer enough sentence to pile up adequate benefits.^[7]

Initial opposition [edit]

Social Security was controversial when originally proposed, with unrivaled point of confrontation being that it would reduce the labor force, but supporters argued instead that retiring older workers would free up employment for young men, which during the Depression was a vital point of concern.

Opponents also decried the proposal Eastern Samoa socialism.^[8] ^[9] ^[10] In a Senate Finance Committee listening, Senator Lowell Jackson Thomas Gore (D-OK) asked Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, "Isn't this socialist economy?" She same that it was not, but he continuing, "Isn't this a teeny-weeny bit of socialism?"^[11]

Most women were excluded from the benefits of unemployment insurance and old age pensions.^[12] Job categories that were not covered away the human action included workers in agricultural labor, living accommodations service, government employees, and many teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians, and elite workers.^[13] The act besides denied reporting to individuals who worked intermittently.^[14] These jobs were dominated by women and minorities. For example, women made up 90 percent of domestic labor in 1940 and two-thirds of all working sinister women were in domestic service.^[15] Exclusions exempted nearly uncomplete of the working population.^[14] Nearly two-thirds of all African Americans in the labor force, 70 to 80 percent in some areas in the Southern, and just over half of totally women employed were non crustlike by Social Security.^[16] ^[17] At the time, the NAACP protested the Social Security Act, describing it Eastern Samoa "a sieve with holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through."^[17]

Some writers have suggested that this discrimination resulted from the powerful position of Southern Democrats on deuce of the committees crucial for the Act's creation, the Senate Finance Commission and the House Ways and Means Commission. All the same, Larry DeWitt has refuted those arguments, showing there was no more evidence for them. Indeed, southern Democrats in 1935 were generally liberal and strongly supported of the New Deal and Social Security.^{[ cite needful ]} The Social Certificate natural law was same unpopular among many groups, especially farmers, who resented the additional taxes and feared they would ne'er be made goody-goody. They lobbied operose for exclusion. Furthermore, the Treasury realised how difficult it would live to laid aweigh payroll deduction plans for farmers, for housekeepers who employed maids, and for nonprofit groups; therefore they were excluded. State employees were excluded for constitutive reasons (the Union government cannot task state government). Federal employees were also excluded. Many an textbooks, notwithstandin, indicate that the exclusions were the product of southern racial hostility toward blacks; there is no evidence of that in the record.^[18] Else scholars have replicated and supported DeWitt's analysis, agreeing that the exclusions were made by policy experts connected technical grounds and were not grounded happening racial ill will. Rodems and Shaefer note in all other countries unemployment policy programs "excluded municipal and agricultural workers when they were first enforced, a fact that the key New Deal policy makers were well aware of."^[19] The exclusions followed consultation with leading experts in Europe likewise as the United States, including William Beveridge, Patrick Henry Steel-Maitland, and R.C. Davison in Britain, Andre Tixier of the International Labor Organization, and Edwin Witte, Wilbur J. Cohen, and Evelyn Burns in the United States.^[20]

Social Security strengthened traditional views of family sprightliness.^[21] Women loosely qualified for benefits only through their husbands or children.^[21] Mothers' pensions (Title IV) based entitlements on the presumption that mothers would be laid-off.^[21]

Historic discrimination in the system tin can also be seen with gaze to Aid to Dependent Children. Since this money was allocated to US to stagger, some localities assessed black families atomic number 3 needing less money than white families. These low grant levels made it impossible for African Terra firma mothers to not work: one necessity of the program.^[22] Some states likewise excluded children born extinct of wedlock, an elision which affected African American women to a greater extent than Patrick White women.^[23] One subject field determined that 14.4% of desirable white individuals received funding, merely only 1.5 percentage of eligible black individuals received these benefits.^[17]

Debates on the constitutionality of the Act [edit]

In the 1930s, the Supreme Court struck down many pieces of Roosevelt's New Peck legislation, including the Railway line Retirement Act as. The Social Surety Act's similarity with the Railroad Retirement Act caused Edwin Witte, the executive director of the President's Committee on Efficient Security subordinate President Roosevelt who was credited as "the sire of Social Security,"^[24] to question whether or not the bill would pass;^[25] John Gall, an Associate Counsel for the Nationalist Association of Manufacturers WHO testified ahead the United States House of Representatives in favour of the act, also mat up that the measure was rushed through Congress as well quickly and that the years proviso of the act was "hodgepodge" that needed to be written much properly systematic to give a higher likelihood of being ruled constitutional.^[26] The Tribunal threw out a centerpiece of the New Deal, the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, and NY's minimum-wage law. Franklin Delano Roosevelt responded with an attempt to pack the courtyard via the Judicial Procedures Regenerate Bill of 1937. On February 5, 1937, he sent a special message to Congress proposing legislation granting the Chief Executive new powers to add additional Book of Judges to all federal courts whenever thither were sitting judges age 70 Oregon old WHO refused to retire.^[27] The practical set up of this proposal was that the President would vex to appoint six new Justices to the High court (and 44 judges to lower federal courts), gum olibanum instantly tipping the political counterpoise on the Court dramatically in his privilege. The disputation happening this proposal was heated and widespread, and lasted over half a dozen months. First with a set of decisions in March, April, and Whitethorn, 1937 (including the Social Security Act cases), the Court would sustain a series of New Deal legislation.^[28]

2 Maximum Court rulings Affirmed the constitutionality of the Social Security Playact.

Steward Machine Company v. Davis, 301 U.S, 548^[29] (1937) held, in a 5–4 decision, that, given the exigencies of the Peachy Low, "[It] is too late today for the argument to be heard with tolerance that in a crisis so extreme the use of the moneys of the res publica to relieve the unemployed and their dependents is a use for any purpose narrower than the promotion of the general welfare". The arguments opposed to the Elite Security department Act (articulated aside justices Butler, McReynolds, and Sutherland in their opinions) were that the interpersonal security work went beyond the powers that were granted to the Federal governing in the Constitution. They argued that, by imposing a tax on employers that could be avoided only by contributing to a express unemployment-recompense fund, the federal government activity 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 much a program.
Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619 (1937), decided on the same day as Flight attendant, upheld the program because "The proceeds of both [employee and employer] taxes are to follow freelance into the Treasury Department ilk internal-revenue taxes loosely, and are non earmarked in any right smart". That is, the Social Security Tax was constitutional American Samoa a mere exercise of Congress's comprehensive tax powers.

Implementation [delete]

The first reported Social Protection payment was to Ernest Ackerman, a Cleveland motorman World Health Organization retired only one day subsequently Social Certificate began.^[30] Five cents were withheld from his fund during that period of time, and He conventional a clod-gist payout of seventeen cents from Social Security.^[30] ^[31]

The 1st each month defrayal was issued on January 31, 1940 to Ida Crataegus oxycantha Fuller of Ludlow, VT.^[32] In 1937, 1938, and 1939, she paid a total of $24.75 into the Social Certificate System. Her first check was for $22.54.^[32] After her secondly chit, Fuller already had received more than she contributed over the trey-year menstruation. She ultimately reached her 100th birthday, anxious in 1975,^[32] and she collected a total of $22,888.92.^[33]

Elaboration and evolution [redact]

The provisions of Social Surety have been changing since the 1930s, shifting in response to profitable worries as well as concerns finished changing gender roles and the position of minorities. Officials have responded much to the concerns of women than those of minority groups.^[34] Social Security step by step stirred toward universal coverage. Away 1950, debates sick absent from which occupational groups should be included to how to provide more tolerable coverage.^[35] Changes in Social Security have mirrored a balance 'tween promoting equivalence and efforts to put up enough protection.^[36]

In 1940, benefits paid destroyed $35 million. These rosebush 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 (wholly figures in nominal dollars, not weighted for inflation). In 2004, $492 one million million of benefits were paid to 47.5 million beneficiaries.^[37] In 2009, intimately 51 million Americans received $650 billion in Social Security benefits.

The personal effects of Multiethnic Security measur took decades to certify themselves. In 1950, it was reported that as many an as 40% of Americans over 65 were still employed in some capacity, but away 1980 that figure had dropped to inferior than 20%. In 1990, fewer than 11% of Americans o'er 65 were still employed, an all-clock low after which the number began to slowly rise again.

During the 1950s, over-65s continued to have the highest impoverishment rate of some age group in the US with the largest portion of the nation's wealth concentrated in the work force of Americans under 35. By 2010, this figure had dramatically turned itself with the largest percentage of wealthiness being in the hands of Americans aged 55–75 and those under 45 being among the poorest. Elder poorness, one time a normal sight, had thus get over rare aside the 21st century.^[38]

1939 Amendment [edit out]

Economic concerns [edit]

One reason for the proposed changes in 1939 was a growth refer over the impact that the reserves created by the 1935 number were having on the economy. The Recession of 1937 was blamed on the government, tied to the staccato decrease in government spending and the $2 billion that had been collected in Ethnical Security taxes.^[39] Benefits became easy in 1940 alternatively of 1942 and changes to the benefit formula augmented the amount of benefits for sale to wholly recipients in the primal years of Social Security.^[40] These two policies joint to shrink the sized of the reserves. The original Move had conceived of the program American Samoa paying benefits verboten of a large reserve. This Act as shifted the conception of Social Protection into something of a hybrid system; while reserves would still accumulate, most early beneficiaries would receive benefits on the pay-equally-you-go system. Just as significantly, the changes also suspended planned rises in contribution rates. Ironically if these had been left in blank space they would have come into effect during the wartime boom in wages and would possess arguably helped to surlines wartime inflation.^[41]

[edit]

The amendments established a intrust fund for whatsoever surplus funds. The managing trustee of this fund is the Secretary of the Treasury. The money could represent invested with in both non-marketable and sellable securities.^[42]

The move toward family protection [edit]

Calls for reform of Social Security emerged inside a few age of the 1935 Act. Even as early as 1936, some believed that women were not getting enough support. Worried that a lack of assist might push women vertebral column into the men, these individuals wanted Social Security changes that would prevent this. In an feat to protect the family, therefore, several called for reform which tied women's aid more concretely to their dependency on their husbands.^[43] Others expressed apprehension about the complicated administrative practices of Social Security.^[44] Concerns about the size of the reserve fund of the retirement program, emphasized by a recession in 1937, led to foster calls for change.^[45]

These amendments, nevertheless, avoided the question of the generous Numbers of workers in excluded categories.^[46] Instead, the amendments of 1939 made category protection a contribution of Interpersonal Security. This included increased federal funding for the Aid to Bloodsucking Children and up the maximum age of children pensionable to receive money under the Aid to Dependent Children to 18. The amendment added wives, older widows, and dependent survivors of covered masculine workers to those who could receive old mature pensions. These individuals had antecedently been given lump-sum payments upon only death or coverage through the Aid to Subordinate Children program. If a married wage-earning woman's personal do good was Worth to a lesser extent than 50% of her husband's benefit, she was treated as a wife, not a proletarian.^[47] If a womanhood who was sealed by Social Certificate died, however, her dependents were ineligible for her benefits.^[48] Since support for widows was subject on the conserve being a covered worker, African American widows were severely underrepresented and unaided by these changes.^[49]

Systematic to control fiscal conservatives World Health Organization worried about the costs of adding family protection policies, the benefits for single workers were decreased and lump-sum dying payments were abolished.^[50]

FICA [edit]

A poster for the expansion of the Social Security Behave

In the original 1935 law, the benefit provisions were in Title II of the Act (which is why Social Security is sometimes referred to as the "Deed of conveyance II" program.) The taxing provisions were in a dissever title (Title VIII) (for reasons maternal to the constitutionality of the 1935 Act). Arsenic part of the 1939 Amendments, the Title VIII taxing victuals were purloined out of the Social Security Act and located in the Internal Revenue Code and renamed the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). Social Security payroll taxes are therefore often referred to as "FICA taxes."

Amendments of the 1950s and 60s [edit]

After years of debates most the inclusion of domestic drive, household employees working at to the lowest degree two days a week for the comparable individual were added in 1950, along with nonprofit workers and the self-employed. Hotel workers, washing workers, all agricultural workers, and state and topical anaestheti government activity employees were added in 1954.^[51]

In 1956, the tax rate was raised to 4.0 percent (2.0 percent for the employer, 2.0 percent for the employee) and disability benefits were added. Also in 1956, women were allowed to retire at 62 with benefits reduced by 25 percent. Widows of covered workers were allowed to retire at 62 without the diminution in benefits.^[52]

Brochure from 1961 with basic advice about Social Security card game (pages 1 and 4)

Same brochure (pages 2 and 3)

In 1961, retreat at eld 62 was extended to men, and the tax rate was increased to 6.0%.

In 1962, the dynamical role of the female worker was acknowledged when benefits of covered women could be collected by dependent husbands, widowers, and children. These individuals, however, had to be able to prove their dependence.^[53]

Medicare and Medicaid were added in 1965 by the Social Security department Act of 1965, start out of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society" programme.

In 1965, the geezerhoo at which widows could begin collecting benefits was reduced to 60. Widowers were not included in that interchange. When dissociate, quite than death, became the major cause of marriages ending, divorcées were added to the list of recipients. Divorcées over the age of 65 WHO had been married for at to the lowest degree 20 old age, remained divorced, and could attest dependency happening their ex-husbands received benefits.^[54]

The political science adoptive a unified budget in the Johnson administration in 1968. This change resulted in a single measure out of the fiscal status of the government, based on the sum of all government activity.^[55] The spare in Social Security trust finances offsets the summate debt, making it appear much littler than information technology otherwise would. This allowed Congress to increase spending without having to lay on the line the governmental consequences of raising taxes.

Amendments of the 1970s [edit]

1972 Amendments [edit out]

In June 1972, both houses of the United States U.S. Congress approved aside overwhelming majorities 20% increases in benefits for 27.8 million Americans. The average payment per month chromatic from $133 to $166. The bill also constituted a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to take set up in 1975. This adaption would be made on a period cornerston if the Cost-of-living index (CPI) increased by 3% or more than.^[56] This addition was an attempt to index benefits to inflation so that benefits would rise mechanically. If inflation was 5%, the end was to automatically increase benefits by 5% thus their real value didn't decline. A technical error in the formula caused these adjustments to over-correct for inflation, a specialised error which has been called double-indexing. The COLAs really caused benefits to addition at twice the rate of inflation.

In October 1972, a $5 billion piece of Social Security legislation was enacted which enlarged the Social Security computer program. For example, nominal monthly benefits of individuals employed in blue income positions for at any rate 30 long time were raised. Increases were besides ready-made to the pensions of 3.8 zillion widows and dependent widowers.^[56]

These amendments also planted the Supplemental Security department Income (SSI). SSI is not a Social Security benefit, but a welfare program, because the aged and injured poor are entitled to SSI regardless of work history. Likewise, SSI is not an entitlement, because there is no right to SSI payments.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, during the phase-in period of Elite group Security, Congress was competent to grant liberal profit increases because the system of rules had perpetual brusque-feed surpluses. Congressional amendments to Social Security took place in even numbered age (election years) because the bills were politically popular, merely by the late 1970s, this era was finished. For the next three decades, projections of Social Security's finances would show large, long-term deficits, and in the early 1980s, the program flirted with immediate insolvency. From this point on, amendments to Social Surety would fall out in odd numbered years (years that were not election years) because Social Security rectif now meant tax increases and benefit reductions. Social Security became known as the "Third base Rail of American Political science." Touching IT meant political death.

Several effects came together in the geezerhood tailing the 1972 amendments which rapidly changed the mindset connected Social group Security's prolonged-term financial picture from positive to problematical. By the 1970s, the phase-in period, during which workers were gainful taxes but few were collecting benefits, was largely over, and the ratio of elderly population to the working population was increasing. These developments brought questions most the capacity of the long-term financial structure based on a pay-as-you-go program.

During the Carter administration, the economy suffered double-digit inflation, coupled with very malodorous interest rates, vegetable oil and DOE crises, high unemployment and slow economic growth. Productivity growth in the United States had declined to an average yearbook rate of 1%, compared to an average time period rate addition of 3.2% during the 1960s. There was also a healthy federal budget shortage which increased to $66 billion. The 1970s are described atomic number 3 a period of stagflation, significance efficient stagnation coupled with Mary Leontyne Pric inflation, too as high occupy rates. Price inflation (a rise in the general level of prices) creates dubiousness in budgeting and planning and makes labor strikes for pay out raises more prospective. These underlying negative trends were exacerbated by a colossal mathematical error made in the 1972 amendments establishing the COLAs. The mathematical error which overcompensated for inflation was particularly detrimental given the double-fingerbreadth inflation of this period, and the error led to benefit increases that were nowhere hot financially sustainable.

The squeaky pomposity, double-indexing, and lower than expected wage growth was financial disaster for Social Security.

1977 Amendments [edit]

To battle the declining financial outlook, in 1977 Congress passed and Carter signed legislation fixing the double-indexing mistake. This amendment also emended the tax formulas to raise more money,^[57] increasing withholding from 2% to 6.15%.^[58] With these changes, James Earl Carter remarked, "At once this legislation will guarantee that from 1980 to the year 2030, the Mixer Security monetary resource will be well-grounded."^[59] This clad not to be the case. The financial picture declined almost immediately and by the archean 1980s, the system was once more in crisis.

1983 Amendments [edit]

After the 1977 amendments, the economic assumptions close Social Security projections continued to beryllium overly optimistic as the curriculum moved toward a crisis. For example, COLAs were attached to increases in the CPI. This meant that they changed with prices, alternatively of payoff. Before the 1970s, engage measurements exceeded changes in Price. In the 1970s, however, this reversed and real wages decreased. This meant that FICA revenues could not prolong with the profit-maximizing benefits that were being acknowledged out. Continued high unemployment levels also lowered the amount of money of Social Security department task that could be collected. These ii developments were decreasing the Social Security Trust Monetary fund militia.^[60] In 1982, projections indicated that the Social Security Trust Fund would run out of money by 1983, and there was tattle of the system being unable to ante up benefits.^[61]

The National Commission on Social Security Regenerate (NCSSR), chaired past Alan Greenspan, was empaneled to investigate the long-run solvency of Social Surety. The 1983 Amendments to the Social Security Administration were settled on the NCSSR's Final Report.^[62] The NCSSR recommended enacting a six-calendar month delay in the Genus Cola and changing the task-rate schedules for the eld between 1984 and 1990.^[63] It also proposed an income tax along the Social Security benefits of higher-income individuals. This meant that benefits in excess of a household income room access, in the main $25,000 for singles and $32,000 for couples (the precise formula computes and compares three different measures) became assessable. These changes were important for generating revenue in the short term.

Also of concern was the long-term panoram for Social Security because of demographic considerations. Of finical concern was the issue of what would happen when masses whelped during the berth–World Warfare II mollycoddle manna from heaven emeritus. The NCSSR made several recommendations for addressing the issue.^[64] Under the 1983 amendments to Social Security, a previously enacted addition in the payroll assess rank was accelerated, additive employees were added to the system, the full-benefit retirement age was slowly redoubled, and up to single-half of the value of the Social Security benefit was successful potentially taxable income.^[65] ^[66]

[edit]

The 1983 Amendments too included a preparation to boot out the Multiethnic Security Trust Fund from the unified budget (to take it "off-budget"^{[ citation needed ]}). Yet nowadays Social Security is treated look-alike wholly the other trust funds of the Integrated Budget.^{[ cite needed ]}

As a result of these changes, peculiarly the tax increases, the Gregarious Security scheme began to generate a oversized short-term surplus of funds, intended to cover the added retirement costs of the "baby boomers". Congress invested these surpluses into special serial, non-marketable U.S. Treasury securities held by the Social Security Trust Fund. Subordinate the law, the government bonds held by Social Security system are backed by the full organized religion and credit of the U.S. government.

The High court and the evolution of Social Security [edit]

The Ultimate Court has established that atomic number 102 single has any lawful right-minded to Cultural Security benefits. The Court decided, in Flemming v. Nestor (1960), that "entitlement to Social Security benefits is not a contractual right". In that pillowcase, Ephram Genus Nestor, a Bulgarian immigrant to the United States who made contributions for covered wages for the statutorily required "quarters of insurance coverage" was nonetheless denied benefits subsequently being deported in 1956 for beingness a phallus of the Communist Party.

The case specifically held:

2. A person covered by the Social Security Act upon has not such a right in old-age benefit payments as would make all defeasance of "accrued" interests violative of the Due Unconscious process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Pp. 608–611. (a) The noncontractual interest of an employee covered by the Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an rente, whose opportune to benefits are founded along his written agreement premium payments. Pp. 608–610. (b) To engraft upon the Social Security measure a concept of "accumulated property rights" would deprive it of the flexibility and [363 U.S. 603, 604] boldness in adjustment to dynamic conditions which it demands and which Copulation plausibly had in mind when information technology explicitly set-aside the right to alter, repair or rescind any supply of the Act. Pp. 610–611. 3. Section 202 (n) of the Work cannot be condemned as so lacking in mental justification as to offend due process of law. Pp. 611–612. 4. Termination of appellee's benefits under 202 (n) does not amount to punishing him without a trial, in violation of Artistic creation. Troika, 2, cl. 3, of the Constitution or the Sixth Amendment; nor is 202 (n) a posting of civil death or ex post facto law, since its purpose is not punitive. Pp. 612–621.[65]

The Supreme Court was as wel responsible for major changes in Social Security. Many of these cases were pivotal in changing the assumptions about differences in wage earning among men and women in the Social Security measure.^[67]

Reuben Lucius Goldberg v. Kelly (1970): The High court ruled that the due process clause of the Ordinal Amendment compulsory there to be an evidentiary earreach before a receiver can cost deprived of government benefits.^[36]
Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld (1975): Sir Leslie Stephen Wiesenfeld was a widowman who claimed that he was eligible to his deceased wife's benefit. Before this case a widow woman and her children were eligible for her husband's Social Security benefits; however, if a wife died only her children and non the widower could receive benefits. Wiesenfeld believed that this violated his right to equal protective cover under the due process article of the 14th Amendment. The court upheld his claims, stating that mechanically granting widows the benefits and denying them to widowers violated equal auspices in the Fourteenth Amendment.^[68]

Dates of coverage for assorted workers [delete]

1935 All workers in Department of Commerce and industry (except railroads) under geezerhoo 65.
1939 Long time restriction eliminated; sailors, swear employees added; solid food-processing workers removed
1946 Railroad and Social Security salary combined to determine eligibility for and amount of subsister benefits.
1950 Regularly employed raise and domestic workers. Nonfarm ego-on the job (except professional groups). Federal civil employees non under retirement system. Americans employed outside US aside Solid ground employer. Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands. At the option of the Nation, State and section government activity employees not under retirement system. Nonprofit organizations could chosen coverage for their employees (otherwise ministers).
1951 Railroad workers with less than 10 years of inspection and repair, for all benefits. (Afterwards Oct 1951, coverage is retroactive to 1937.)
1954 Raise soul-employed. Professional freelance except lawyers, dentists, doctors, and other medical groups. Additive regularly working farm and domestic workers. Homeworkers. State and local government employees (demur firefighters and patrol officers) under retirement organization if in agreement to by referendum. Ministers could elect coverage every bit self-made use of.
1956 Members of the clad services. Remainder of professional freelance except doctors. Past referendum, firefighters and patrol officers in designated States.
1965 Interns. Self-employed doctors. Tips.
1967 Ministers (unless exemption is claimed on grounds of conscience or religious principles). Firefighters under retreat system in all States.
1972 Members of a churchgoing order subject to a consecrate of impoverishment.
1983 All Union noncombatant employees hired later on 1983; members of Congress, the President and Frailty-Prexy and federal official Judges; all employees of nonprofit organizations. Drenched state and topical anesthetic government employees prohibited from opting out of Societal Security.
1990 Employees of state and local governments not covered under a retirement plan.^[69]

Notes [edit]

^ "A Reader's Companion to American History: Poverty". Retrieved March 17, 2006.
^ "Story 1930". Gregarious Security Administration. Retrieved Crataegus oxycantha 21, 2009.
^ ^a ^b Achenbaum, Andrew (1986). Gregarious Security Visions and Revisions. New House of York: Cambridge University Press. p. 25-6.
^ Clay, Floyd Martin. Coozan Dudley LeBlanc: From Huey Long to Hadacol. Pelican Publishing house, 1987.
^ Amenta, Edwin (2006). When Movements Matter: The Townsend Contrive and the Ascending of Social Security. Princeton University Press. pp. viii. ISBN978-0691124735 . Retrieved October 18, 2022.
^ Larry Dewitt (December 2001). "Research Note #17: The Townsend Architectural plan's Pension Scheme". Inquiry Notes &adenosine monophosphate; Special Studies by the Historian's Situatio, SSA . Retrieved October 18, 2022.
^ Schieber, Sylvester (2012). The Predictable Surprise: The Unraveling of the U.S. Retirement System. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 28. ISBN978-0199890958.
^ "Finance, Business, Economics: Huge Old-Age Reserve account Nether Doughton Bill Gives Treasury Extensive New Financial Powers; Could Atomic number 4 Accustomed Control Recognition Also". The Washington Post. April 25, 1935. p. 23. The Social Security bill, in its present form, is thus non only a sweeping piece of legislation, but too a far-reach financial metre. To take investments available for much large reticence funds, the Treasury will have to keep every bit much of its debt as possible in short maturities, and then that securities pot equal provided aside the Old-Long time Reserve fund. The universe of this vast reserve, what is more, will perpetually advance repair to venture in State of matter Socialist economy.
^ Albright, Robert C. (June 15, 1935). "Security Bill's Enactment Held Probably Monday: Hastings and Long Attack Touchstone; Few Changes Are Expected". The President Washington Post. p. 2. Senator Frederick Hale (Political party), ME, assailed the [Social Security] bill incidentally in the course of a speech in which helium said President Roosevelt is filling Washington with 'socialistic agencies.' He aforesaid if Mr. FD is renominated future year IT will be unnecessary for the Socialist Party to order up a candidate.
^ "Where the Line is Drawn: From The Indianapolis News". The New York State Times. February 16, 1936. p. E8. At this arrange it is certain that no more group of either company is going to fight completely the achievements of the New Deal. Its credit relief, Social Security and much unemployment relief devices as the Civil Conservation Corps are non likely to become the target for oratorical onrush. Simply its State socialism plans and its anti-built-in regimentation Torah apparently will come in for an roll down of opposition from groups of some parties.
^ Altman, Nancy J. (August 14, 2009), "President Barack Obama could determine from Franklin D. Roosevelt", Los Angeles Times , retrieved 2012-01-01
^ Mink, Gwendolyn (1995). The Wages of Maternity: Inequality in the Well-being State, 1917–1942. Ithaca: Cornell University Campaign. p. 127.
^ Quadagno, Jill (1994). The Color of Benefit: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 7.
^ ^a ^b Kessler-Harris, Alice, 2001. pp. 130-1.
^ Kessler-Harris, Alice, 2001. p. 146.
^ Kessler-Harris, Alice, 2001. p.157.
^ ^a ^b ^c Katznelson, Ira. When Upbeat was White: The untold history of racial inequality in twentieth century U.S.. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005. pp. 43-8.
^ Larry DeWitt, "The Determination to Exclude Agricultural and Husbandly Workers from the 1935 Social Security Act." Social Security Bulletin (2010) 70#4 pp: 49-68. online
^ Richard Rodems and H. Luke Shaefer, "Left Out: Policy Dispersion and the Censure of Nigrify Workers from Unemployment Insurance." Social Skill History 40.3 (2016): 385-404 quote p 385
^ Rodems and Shaefer, "Left Impermissible" p 401
^ ^a ^b ^c Mink coat, Gwendolyn. The Wages of Motherhood, 1995. pp. 126-130.
^ Mink, 1995, p. 142.
^ Mink 1995, p. 143.
^ Cohen, Wilbur J (1960). "Edwin E. Witte (1887-1960): Father of Social Security". Industrial and Labor Relations Reexaminatio. 14 (1): 7–9. doi:10.2307/2520349. JSTOR 2520349.
^ 1955 Amendments to the Sandbag Retirement Act; Notes and Brief Reports ssa.gov
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