Social Security Act of 1935
Social Security Act of 1935 established old age insurance for much of the over 60 population. Half of the funds are provided by a payroll tax on workers and half is paid by employers. The act also provided federal unemployment insurance, welfare aid to low-income mothers (later amended to families), funding for individual state assistance to elderly individuals, and various other social insurance provisions.
Cry Wolf Quotes
Effective January 1937, we are compelled by a Roosevelt New Deal law to make a 1 percent deduction from your wages and turn it over to the government. You might get this money back . . . but only if Congress decides to make the appropriations for this purpose.
I fear it may end the progress of a great country and bring its people to the level of the average European. It will furnish delicious food and add great strength to the political demagogue. It will assist in driving worthy and courageous men from public life. It will discourage and defeat the American trait of thrift. It will go a long way toward destroying American initiative and courage.
Do not forget this: such an excessive tax on payrolls is beyond question a tax on employment. In prosperous times it slows down the advance of wages and holds back re-employment. In bad times it increases unemployment, and unemployment breaks wage scales.
Unfortunately, the measure is in some respects ill-considered. It’s constitutionality is by no means certain: if the Federal Government may compel the states to adopt unemployment insurance under the guise of a tax, why may it not similarly compel them to adopt any other sort of legislation
