15. The Social Security Act of 1935
Possibly the most critical action, and most enduring, of Franklin Roosevelt’s long Presidency was the Social Security Act of 1935. That year poverty rates among what would at a later date be known as senior citizens exceeded 50%. Employer funded pensions were virtually non-existent. Once a person’s life savings were used up they had only family, friends, or charities to care for them. Roosevelt’s proposal faced strong opposition from conservatives, who argued that retiring workers would weaken the labor force. Others opposed it on the grounds that it was a form of socialism, threatening to the capitalistic system. Several professions and trades were excluded from the act, including farm labor and librarians, most hospital employees and nurses, and all government workers. Almost half of the labor force was excluded by the terms of the original act.
Because the Constitution prohibits the federal government from levying taxes on the governments of the states, all state employees were excluded, since the law prohibited the federal government from levying the payroll deduction. Despite the opposition from conservatives in Congress and the vast number of Americans who remained without coverage, Roosevelt managed to have the bill passed and it was signed into law in August 1935. Despite arguments by many that the new law was unconstitutional the Supreme Court upheld the law in two separate decisions in the spring of 1937. In 1939 the act was amended to create a trust fund under the Secretary of the Treasury and to add family protection, allowing widows and dependent survivors to receive benefits if the earning worker died. Social Security has remained a point of debate for over eighty years, with no end in sight.