On Aug. 14, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Safety Act, without end altering the lives of People by making certain financial safety for seniors and a federal unemployment insurance coverage program for the jobless.
“Today a hope of many years’ standing is in large part fulfilled. The civilization of the past hundred years, with its startling industrial changes, has tended more and more to make life insecure,” Roosevelt mentioned upon signing the legislation.
“Young people have come to wonder what would be their lot when they came to old age,” he continued. “The man with a job has wondered how long the job would last. This Social Security measure gives at least some protection to thirty millions 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.”
That’s precisely what it’s been doing for all these years, as documented by Social Safety Works, a corporation that fights to guard Social Safety, Medicare, and Medicaid:
Over 66 million People depend upon Social Safety—round 1 out of each 5 People.
Round half of all seniors depend on Social Safety for many of their earnings.
One-quarter of seniors depend on it for just about all (90% or extra) of their earnings.
Social Safety’s advantages are modest, however very important, averaging round $20,000 per yr.
Social Safety lifts 22.5 million People, together with over 1 million kids, out of poverty and reduces the depth of poverty for tens of millions extra. With out it, the poverty fee of our seniors can be 38%; as a substitute it’s slightly below 9%.
It’s an especially environment friendly program, with administrative prices of lower than a penny on the greenback. Social Safety’s protections are estimated to have a gift worth of greater than $675,000 in life insurance coverage and $700,000 in incapacity insurance coverage for a married 30 yr outdated employee who has common earnings and two younger kids.
Social Safety has turn into a lifeline for tens of millions. Practically 70% of voters rank it as an important or prime situation in determining whom they’ll vote for this yr, in response to a current ballot from Hart Analysis/Public Opinion Methods on behalf of CNBC.
And for these People, it must be an apparent alternative this fall. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has a file of coverage positions that wouldn’t simply protect Social Safety but additionally make it work even higher, together with a cost-of-living-adjustment enlargement and a $200-per-month profit improve. That must be excellent news to the 62% of doubtless voters who wish to see the federal government improve Social Safety advantages, in response to a February ballot from Knowledge for Progress.
Congressional Democrats, as nicely, have repeatedly pushed for laws to extend advantages and shore up this system’s belief fund to maintain it robust. And a President Harris wouldn’t be capable to obtain these targets if Democrats don’t take majorities in each the Senate and the Home.
However what do Republicans need? When Donald Trump was in workplace, he repeatedly tried to undermine this system, proposing slashed spending. And Home Republicans have countered Democrats’ efforts to develop it with cuts, together with elevating the retirement age to 70.
It’s a easy alternative should you care about Roosevelt’s legacy and your personal future.
