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Roots of Social Security – Frances Perkins

Before I was appointed, I had a little conversation with Roosevelt in which I said perhaps he didn’t want me to be the Secretary, of Labor because if I were, I should want to do this, and this, and this. Among the things I wanted to do was find a way of getting unemployment insurance, old-age insurance, and health insurance. I remember he looked so startled, and he said, “Well, do you think it can be done?”

I said, “I don’t know.” He said, Well, there are constitutional problems, aren’t there?” “Yes, very severe constitutional problems,” I said. “But what have we been elected for except to solve the constitutional problems? Lots of other problems have been solved by the people of the United States, and there is no reason why this one shouldn’t be solved.”

“Well,” he said, “do you think you can do it?” “I don’t know, ” I said But I wanted to try. “I want to know if I have your authorization. I won’t ask you to promise anything.” He looked at me and nodded wisely. “All right,” he said, “I will authorize you to try, and if you succeed, that’s fine.”

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Child Welfare: A 1934 Report on Security for Children

Final report prepared by Katharine F. Lenroot and Dr. Martha M. Eliot. “The chief aim of social security is the protection of the family life of wage earners, and the prime factor in family life is the protection and development of children. Child welfare, in fact, has been called the ‘Spearhead of Social Security.'”

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Unemployment Compensation: A 1934 Report

The unprecedented extent and duration of unemployment in the United States since 1930 has left no one who is dependent upon a wage or salary untouched by the dread of loss of work. Unemployment relief distributed as a form of public charity, though necessary to prevent starvation, is not a solution of the problem. It is expensive to distribute and demoralizing to both donor and recipient. A device is needed which will assure those who are involuntarily unemployed a small steady income for a limited period. Such income, received as a right, is provided by an unemployment insurance or unemployment compensation system.

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The Townsend Plan

The Townsend Plan proved enormously popular. Within two years of the publication of the Plan as a Letter to the Editor in a Long Beach, California newspaper, there were over 7,000 “Townsend Clubs” with over 2.2 million members actively working to make the Townsend Plan the nation’s old-age pension system. At one point in 1936 Townsend was able to deliver petitions to Congress containing 10 million signatures in support of the Townsend Plan. Public opinion surveys in 1935 found that 56% of Americans favored adoption of the Townsend Plan.

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Old Age Security: Abraham Epstein’s View (1934)

We all know, of course, that any program of social security will be complete if complete security is provided and the best kind of security. But I believe that since we are just imperfect human beings, and most of us are imperfect, we should confine ourselves for the present to one problem, at least try to solve one problem at a time, not 100 per cent, or even 90 per cent. If you can only get over that philosophy to the legislatures, I think that all of our problems on social security in this country will be solved.

The reason that there is no perfect remedy for making old age absolutely secure, no matter what principle is adopted, no matter what legislation we enact, is that there will always be certain flaws to make it at least just below 100 per cent perfect, if for no other reason than the fact that the members of the Senate and House of Representatives are fallible people. Some may not believe that, but at least most of us agree on it. Therefore, we cannot expect infallible laws.

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Caring for Paupers (1881)

The class which suffers at all our almshouses is the class for whom almshouses are presumed to be maintained, the unfortunate and self-respecting poor. A more horrible existence than a modest woman must endure at very many of our almshouses it is impossible to imagine. She lives amid unclean disorder and constant bickering; she is always hearing oaths and vile talk, the ravings of madmen and the uncouth gibberings of idiots; she is always seeing scarred and blotched faces and distorted limbs, hideous shapes such as one encounters in the narrow streets of Italian towns, but which, here, we hide in our almshouses. She is exposed to a hundred petty wrongs; Mrs. Jens’s case, already described, may give the reader an inkling of their nature. Often she is treated with absolute cruelty; in some almshouses she cannot protect herself from the grossest insults.

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Veteran’s Pensions: Early History

Since the original resolution of 1776 pension legislation has been voluminous, and down to the revision of the pension laws in 1873 may be justly termed chaotic. This paper will attempt only to outline some of the general features. In order to do this the more clearly the various grants of pensions may be divided into four classes, viz.:

I. Pensions based upon disability incurred in service, or the death of the soldier from such cause.
II. Pensions based upon service and indigence, without regard to the origin of existing disability, or the cause of the soldiers death.
III. Pensions based upon service only.
IV. Pensions based upon disability, without regard to the origin of such disability or the pecuniary circumstances of the beneficiary.

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Old Age Assistance: A Brief History (1934)

At the end of 1928, after six years of agitation, there were only six states and one territory which had made provision for their aged. They were Colorado, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, Wisconsin and Alaska. All the state laws were of the optional type, i.e., they left the adoption or rejection of an old age assistance system to the discretion of the counties. For this reason these laws had very limited effect only.

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Old Age Assistance: An Overview

From the earliest colonial times, local villages and towns recognized an obligation to aid the needy when family effort and assistance provided by neighbors and friends were not sufficient. This aid was carried out through the poor relief system and almshouses or workhouses. Gradually, measures were adopted to provide aid on a more organized basis, usually through cash allowances to certain categories among the poor. Mothers’ pension laws, which made it possible for children without paternal support to live at home with their mothers rather than in institu­tions or foster homes, were adopted in a number of States even before World War I. In the mid-twenties, a few States began to experiment with old-age assistance and aid to the blind.

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