FDR signs Social Security bill into law

UPI - August 14, 1935 

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14, 1935 (UP) - President Roosevelt today signed the far-reaching Social Security bill and remarked - as he laid aside his pen - that "a hope of many years standing is in large part fulfilled."
"This social security measure gives at least some protection to 30,000,000 of our citizens who will reap direct benefits through unemployment compensation through old-age pensions and through increased services for the protection of children and the prevention of ill health," Mr. Roosevelt continued.
"We can never insure 100 per cent of the population against 100 per cent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old-age."
His signature completed enactment of one of the most important and far-reaching of New Deal proposals. Championed by Mr. Roosevelt to help Americans "meet some of the major economic hazards of life," the measure:
1. Provides for federal contributions of up to $15 a month a person, starting soon, to help states pension their most needy aged residents.
2. Establishes a great national annuity system by which an estimated 25,000,000 workers and their employers will be taxed billions of dollars through the years, and workers will be paid $10 to $85 a month by the government when they are 65 and jobless.
3. Creates joint State-Federal unemployment insurance systems to provide limited benefits in times of future unemployment.
4. Assists the states immediately in caring for dependent mothers and children, the blind and the ill.
About $100,000,000 of federal funds are called for to finance the federal share of immediate assistance to the aged and to mothers, children and the blind. Congress is expected to appropriate the actual funds before adjourning this session.
The administration's Committee on Economic Security estimates at least 2,400,000 persons are over 65 and in need. How many of them will be helped immediately depends largely on the states. Federal funds will be granted only to the extent that states or their subdivisions pay pensions to the aged.
But in 1937 an estimated 25,000,000 persons will begin paying special taxes which eventually will take 3 per cent of their wages each. Their employers will be required to pay the same levy. From the proceeds of these taxes, beginning in 1942, persons who have been paying the taxes for five years and who are over 65 and out of work will receive pensions direct from the federal Treasury.
The unemployment insurance program will not help those now jobless, but it virtually will force the states to set up insurance plans guaranteeing limited benefits to those who lose their jobs in 1939 and thereafter.
The entire program will be administered by a Federal Social Security Board of three members.

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