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On this day in history, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was born!
He [President FDR] believed (and we still believe) that Social Security is basic to the lives of the American people. And he was very clear that it was a family program. It was created not only so that people, when they reach retirement age, have enough money for the basics of a decent life. It’s also so that their children don’t have to spend down their money to take care of them.
Jim Roosevelt [FDR’s grandson] via Entitled to Know.
Hear Max Richtman on WTOP Newsradio with news about our new poll on overwhelming pubic support for Social Security & Medicare.
President Trump opens GOP convention spreading falsehoods on mail-in voting while his Postmaster General defends the administration’s efforts to thwart it. https://www.ncpssm.org/documents/letters-116th/letter-endorsing-the-delivering-for-america-act/ #DeJoyHearing #SaveTheUSPS
In the iconic photo of Franklin D. Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act of 1935, the dignitaries crowded around the president stare intently at the legislation on his desk. Only one looks directly into the camera. She is the woman without whom we likely would not have Social Security today: Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins – alone in a sea of men, wearing a slim black dress with white buttons and a fashionable tricorn hat. Like other pioneering women from the first half of the 20th century, Perkins deserves to be honored before Women’s History Month 2019 ends.
If FDR was the father of Social Security, the first-ever female Labor Secretary was the mother. Perkins coaxed, cajoled, and practically willed the program into being, undaunted by formidable obstacles (including the question of its very constitutionality). When Christopher Breiseth, former CEO of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, asked Perkins to identify her proudest achievement toward the end of her life, she said without hesitation in her clipped and carefully cultivated Boston Brahmin accent: “Two words: Social Security.”
Read more from our op-ed by clicking here.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law on this day in 1935 to provide seniors with basic income security after retirement, mitigating against the “vicissitudes and hazards of life.” Eighty-two years later, the program he created has kept several generations of seniors – and their families – out of poverty. In turn, the nation is very fortunate to have had several generations of Roosevelts dedicated to preserving Social Security.
The good old days weren’t so good for seniors before Social Security was enacted 82 years ago today. Nearly half of all older Americans lived in poverty. Today, the figure is down to nine percent. Luckier seniors were supported by their families; the less fortunate literally went to the poor house. The father of Social Security, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, observed after visiting poor houses in New York, “It tears my heart to see those old men and women there, more than almost anything that I know.”
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82 years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. It established one of our nation’s greatest social and economic achievements: a law that at its very core was meant to allow people to meet their basic needs at the most vulnerable times in their lives.
Unfortunately, this hallmark legislation has come under enormous scrutiny over the past few decades, making what should be a nonpartisan issue a focal point of partisan grandstanding. Social Security is one of the most successful programs our country has produced. Public opinion polls show that Americans across the political spectrum strongly support the Social Security program – which is why Social Security has come to be known as the “third rail” of politics (attacking it would be political suicide).
More on this issue can be found via Buzzfeed.
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Here are some Social Security fast facts.
President Donald Trump plans to halt payments to health insurance companies serving the poorest customers on the Obamacare exchanges, the White House announced Thursday.
Trump has threatened to withhold these funds, valued at $7 billion this year, since shortly after his election victory last November. The threats alone have roiled the health insurance market, and if he follows through, it promises to be significantly disruptive. Trump will make an announcement Friday, according to Politico, which first reported the news.
via Huffington Post.
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Social Security is among the nation’s largest programs serving children. About 4.4 million American children receive approximately $2.7 billion in Social Security benefits each month because at least one of their parents is disabled, retired or deceased.