From Families USA, April 2010
Building Blocks of Reform: The Social Security Example
To those who say the pending health reform legislation does too little, is too incremental to solve the problems we’re facing, we say, “Social Security.”
Social Security is arguably the largest social program ever enacted in the United States. It is certainly the biggest and most effective anti-poverty program: Nearly half of all seniors would fall below the federal poverty level were it not for Social Security.
But Social Security didn’t start that way. When it was signed into law in 1935, Social Security was a skeleton of the program we know today:
- People were required to pay into the program beginning in 1937, but monthly benefits wouldn’t start until 1942, five years later.
- Only workers were covered, not their spouses or children.
- Agricultural workers and domestics were excluded so most workers of color were not eligible.
Four years later, in 1939, Congress amended the Social Security Act to extend coverage to spouses and children and to add survivors’ benefits. They also increased the level of benefits (though they were still a paltry amount) and sped up the date when monthly payments would begin to 1940 instead of 1942.
In 1950, benefits were raised for the first time – no annual cost-of-living adjustments in the early program – and scheduled another increase for 1952. These two increases doubled the value of Social Security payments. The 1950 amendments also made domestic workers eligible for coverage.
In 1954, agricultural workers, along with hotel workers and laundry workers, were added.
In 1956, the law was expanded to include older (aged 50 to 64) workers with disabilities and disabled adult children.
In 1960, the disability benefits were further expanded to cover disabled workers of any age and their dependents.
In 1972, Congress passed legislation that, beginning in 1975, provided for automatic cost-of-living allowances (the famous Social Security COLA) based on increases in consumer prices.
The tiny program enacted in 1935 became a foundation. On that foundation, Congress (at the urging of policy specialists and advocates) added floors and additions and amenities until they had the program we know today, the program nearly one in every six Americans now depends on.
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