Activity One Group D: Debating The Social Security Act
Review the Great Depression time line and the section entitled “The Stock Market Crash and The Great Depression” on The Historical Background and Development of Social Security page, and answer the questions below.
Read the Preamble to the Social Security Act, and answer the questions below.
- How was the Social Security Act going to provide for Americans in a different way than they had previously been provided for?
- Why do you believe the Social Security Act identified these particular groups in its preamble?
- According to the preamble, what problem is the Social Security Act solving? Under this system, what does the federal government do and what do the states do? Why divide their duties in this way?
Read the following text, and work collaboratively with the rest of your group to answer the questions that follow.
- What role is assigned to government in the reading?
- Does the speaker believe that the Social Security Act will help or harm the people of the United States?
- What is the speaker’s reasoning for his or her argument? Pay particular attention to whether their position is based on evidence, logic, or economic and political ideology.
- Do you agree or disagree with the author of your document? Why or why not?
- Do you think contemporaries would have found his or her arguments convincing? Why or Why not?
What Year Did They Start Giving Out Social Security
1936The best we can say with certainty is that the first SSN was issued sometime in mid-November 1936. In any case, on whatever day the first card was issued, hundreds of thousands of SSNs were probably issued on that same day, so many people had Social Security cards issued on the very first day they became available.
Social Security Act Amendments Of 1939
H.R.6635 Approved, August 10, 1939Public Law 76-379
Expansion of benefits
The original Act provided for only one Federally-administered benefit: Old-Age Insurance, which was paid only to the insured worker. The 1939 Amendments transformed the very nature of the Social Security program. The Amendments created two new benefit categories under §202 of the Act:
- Payments to the spouse and children of a retired worker called dependents or family benefits, a provision of Old-Age Insurance.
- Payments to the family of an insured worker in the event of the premature death of the worker, called survivors benefits, the provision of the then-newly created Survivors Insurance program.
Retirement-aged wives, children under 16 , widowed mothers caring for eligible children, and aged widows were all made eligible for dependents and survivors benefits.
Under select circumstances, parents of deceased insured workers were also made eligible for Survivors Insurance. To be eligible parents must be at least age 65, not entitled to Old-Age Insurance, wholly dependent upon the insured worker for income, and mustn’t have married since the death of the insured worker. Furthermore, the parent are not eligible if the deceased insured worker leaves a widow or unmarried surviving child under the age of 18.
The 1939 Amendments also increased benefit amounts and accelerated the start of monthly benefit payments from 1940 to 1942.
Alternation of financing mechanisms
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Efforts To Keep Social Security Solvent
These efforts didnt prevent the program from facing a serious financial crisis in the 1980s, however, and President Ronald Reagan created a commission to examine how to keep Social Security in the black. In 1983, he signed legislation that gradually increased the retirement age to 67, taxed Social Security benefits and provided Social Security benefits to federal workers.
After taking office in 2001, President George W. Bush appointed another Social Security Commission with its top priority being Social Security reform. No revolutionary changes were made to keep the program solvent long-term. Still, the Bush administration extended disability benefits and food stamps to qualified immigrants and their children, eliminated wage credits for the military and expanded Medicare prescription drug coverage.
President Obamas administration temporarily reduced the Social Security tax rate from 6.2 to 4.2 percent in 2011 and 2012. The move helped ease financial strain on American workers but did little to stop the risk of Social Security going into future debt.
White House Brags About Social Security Check Increase Caused By Inflation
A White House tweet about Social Security check increases is getting some grief, and a label from .
During a campaign stop Tuesday in Florida to denounce Republicans‘ economic intentions, President Joe Biden discussed Social Security and inflation in a gaffe-filled speech.
“And on my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks,” Biden said. “So, checks are going to be up and Medicare payments are going to be down.”
Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership.
The White House
The official White House account tweeted: “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership.”
Twitter then added a “context” label below the tweet, adding information that it “thought people might want to know.” The label reads that people “will receive a large Social Security benefit increase due to the annual cost of living adjustment, which is based on the inflation rate.”
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.
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What Did Reagan Do To Social Security
In 1981, Reagan ordered the Social Security Administration to tighten up enforcement of the Disability Amendments Act of 1980, which resulted in more than a million disability beneficiaries having their benefits stopped.
What did President Franklin D Roosevelt establish Social Security?
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935. Although it was initially created to combat unemployment, Social Security now functions primarily as a powerful safety net for retirees and the disabled, and provides death benefits to taxpayer dependents.
Social Security Is The Bedrock Of The American Retirement System
As the only reliable leg left standing, Social Security has come to play an outsized role in bolstering seniors economic security. For most workers, Social Security will be their only source of retirement income that guarantees benefits will continue over their lifetime, is protected from inflation, and is not subject to investment risk. While it was not designed to serve as retirees primary income source, half of seniors today receive at least 50 percent of their income from Social Security, and one-fifth receive 90 percent or more of their income from the program. As multiple witnesses testified throughout the hearing, improving retirement security for current and future generations of retirees will depend on protecting Social Securitys long-term viability.
Economic inequality has eroded the programs wage base Dr. Melissa Favreault, Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute, emphasized that increased inequality has exacerbated Social Securitys shortfall. The programs cap on taxable wages has not kept pace with explosive income growth at the top since the mid-1970s. As a result, the share of earnings subject to the Social Security payroll tax has fallen from 90 percent in 1982 to 83 percent. Dr. Favreault further argued that increasing program revenue needs to be a critical component of restoring the programs long-term financial balance. At least part of this new revenue should come from high-income adults who can best afford to make higher contributions.
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What Is Social Security
Social Security is a federal program that issues benefits to retirees who paid into the program during their working years, people unable to work due to a physical or mental condition, spouses and children of beneficiaries, and surviving family members of beneficiaries.
Social Security Benefits For Survivors
Upon a Social Security beneficiaryâs death, their surviving family may be eligible for benefits. These are called survivors benefits.
Generally, survivors receive 75% to 100% of the beneficiaryâs basic Social Security benefit with total family limits ranging from 150% to 180%.
Surviving spouses or minor children may be eligible for a one-time payment of $255 survivorâs benefit upon the death of the beneficiary.
A survivorâs eligibility for benefits depends on their relationship to the deceased beneficiary and possibly other factors such as their age, disability status, , dependency status, student status, benefits status, and childcare responsibilities.
| Type of Survivor |
| Eligible if they were your dependent for at least half their support |
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Soaring Living Costs Are Putting Pressure On Retiree Incomes
Throughout the hearing, witnesses pointed to rising costs, particularly for health care, as another factor undermining Americans retirement security. Average life expectancies have also increased, requiring workers to plan and save for a longer period of retirement while increasing the risk that they will require costly long-term care services. The average number of retirement years has already increased from 12 in the 1960s to nearly 20 today, increasing the amount of resources seniors will need to survive their retirements.
Truthfully, some retirees are being skinned alive as it is Mr. Hanner powerfully explained that pensioners in North Carolina are seeing their modest pension benefits stretched by increasing costs of living, including for utilities and out-of-pocket medical expenses. With an average monthly pension payment of $1,200 with no cost-of-living adjustments many participants in the Central States Pension Fund are already struggling to get by. Consequently, Mr. Hanner argued, any potential cut in retiree benefits would be devastating.
Activity One Group C: Debating The Social Security Act
Review the Great Depression time line and the section entitled “The Stock Market Crash and The Great Depression” on The Historical Background and Development of Social Security page, and answer the questions below.
Read the Preamble to the Social Security Act, and answer the questions below.
- How was the Social Security Act going to provide for Americans in a different way than they had previously been provided for?
- Why do you believe the Social Security Act identified these particular groups in its preamble?
- According to the preamble, what problem is the Social Security Act solving? Under this system, what does the federal government do and what do the states do? Why divide their duties in this way?
Read the following text, and work collaboratively with the rest of your group to answer the questions that follow.
- What role is assigned to government in the reading?
- Does the speaker believe that the Social Security Act will help or harm the people of the United States?
- What is the speaker’s reasoning for his or her argument? Pay particular attention to whether their position is based on evidence, logic, or economic and political ideology.
- Do you agree or disagree with the author of your document? Why or why not?
- Do you think contemporaries would have found his or her arguments convincing? Why or Why not?
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We Must Not Improve Our Fiscal Outlook By Gutting Retirement Security
Our long-term budget challenges should not be solved on the backs of retirees, but Republicans have a long history of calling for cuts to vital programs in the name of taming deficits made worse by their own unpaid-for tax cuts, including the 2017 tax law. As Chairman John Yarmuth noted in his opening statement, These tax cuts blew a massive $1.9 trillion hole in our deficits, and as a result, our Republican colleagues have called for extreme cuts to entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare. Policymakers must reject these efforts if we are to close retirement gaps and honor the promise of retirement security.
Social Security Act Of 1935
The Social Security Act was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. It established Social Security benefits throughout the country that serve as a major source of income for elderly and disabled U.S. citizens and their dependents. The law also established the joint federal-state unemployment insurance program. Increases in population and life expectancy have caused Social Security to grow since the early years of the act, bringing about regular adjustments and several amendments since the original passage of the law.
The Social Security Administration estimated that 59 million Americans would receive a total of almost $870 billion in benefits by the end of 2015.
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Millions Of Americans Are In Danger Of Losing Their Hard
Witnesses also testified on the multiemployer pension crisis, which threatens to obliterate the retirement security of 1.5 million working-class Americans. More than 100 of these plans in which employers band together to provide employees with pensions as part of a collective bargaining agreement face insolvency within the next two decades, putting participants in danger of seeing their monthly benefits slashed and the bulk of their retirement incomes wiped away. Meanwhile, the federal insurer of multiemployer plans the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is itself at risk of insolvency if just one or two plans collapse.
Mr. Dale Hanner, a Teamster retiree and the Secretary-Treasurer of the North Carolina Committee to Protect Pensions, shared the stories of some of his fellow retirees participating in the Central States Pension Fund, one of the nations largest multiemployer plans covering more than 400,000 people. The Fund is projected to run out of money by 2025, leaving it unable to pay any benefits to current or future retirees.
Social Security Law: An Overview
Social security is designed, as the title suggests, to provide security. To protect individuals from unforeseen catastrophes, the government spreads certain risks among all members of society so that no single family bears the full burden of such occurrences.
In the United States, the Social Security Program was created in 1935 to provide old age, survivors, and disability insurance benefits to workers and their families. Unlike welfare, social security benefits are paid to an individual or his or her family at least in part on the basis of that person’s employment record and prior contributions to the system. The program is administered by the Social Security Administration . Since the establishment of the Medicare program in 1965, it and Social Security have been closely linked. While the original act used “Social Security” in a broader sense, including federally funded welfare programs and unemployment compensation within its scope, and the Medicare legislature took the form of amendments to that act, current usage associates the phrase with old age, survivors, and disability insurance.
While the Social Security Act governs an applicant’s right to benefits, state substantive law governs some of the family relationship issues that may bear on that right such as the validity of a marriage.
For greater detail on all these points visit the LII’s Social Security Library.
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Roosevelts Radical Idea: Social Security
Until Franklin D. Roosevelt became president, most social assistance plans in America were dependent on the government, charities and private citizens doling out money to people in need.
Roosevelt, however, borrowed a page from Europes economic security rulebook and took a different approach. He proposed a program in which people contributed to their own future economic security by contributing a portion of their work income through payroll tax deductions.
Basically, the current working generation would pay into the program and finance the retired generations monthly allowance.
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Create A My Social Security Account
To see all of your Social Security benefits online, you’ll first need to create a My Social Security account. Here’s what to do.
1. Go to ssa.gov on your browser and select my Social Security.
2. Next, click Create an Account.
3. You’ll be prompted to sign in with your ID.me account or login.gov account unless you created an account before Sept. 18, 2021. Note that you’ll need to create one of those accounts if you don’t have one.
4. Once you have an account, you’ll need to agree to the terms of service to continue.
5. Next, you’ll need to verify your identity. The Social Security Administration will send a one-time security code to your email that you’ll need to enter within 10 minutes to continue to your account.
You should now have access to all of your Social Security statements and other details online.
Understanding The Social Security Act
A key feature of the Social Security Actand Social Security as a social programis how it is funded. Social Security tax is collected in the form of a payroll tax mandated by the Federal Insurance Contributions Act or a self-employment tax mandated by the Self-Employed Contributions Act . The tax is levied on both employers and employees.
The Social Security tax pays for the retirement, disability, and survivor benefits that millions of Americans receive each year under the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Programthe official name for Social Security in the U.S. The U.S. Social Security system is the biggest expenditure in the federal budget and is projected to cost $1.2 trillion in 2021.
The Social Security tax combines with the Medicare tax to form FICA or the payroll tax. For 2022 and 2023, the Social Security tax rate is 6.2%, and the Medicare tax rate is 1.45%. The total payroll tax of 7.65% is deducted from the employee’s paycheck. The employer must make a matching contribution of an additional 7.65%. Social Security tax is also taken from the earnings of the self-employed. In 2022 and 2023, the Social Security tax rate is 12.4% for the self-employed, who also pay a 2.9% Medicare tax.
Workers only pay Social Security taxes on income up to $147,000 in 2022 and $160,200 in 2023. Any amount earned above these thresholds is not subject to Social Security taxes. There is no income cap on the Medicare tax.
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