77 Years After It Became Law, Social Security Keeps 20 Million Americans Out Of Poverty

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Today marks the 77th anniversary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act into law, creating arguably America’s most successful social program. “We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent 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,” FDR said on that day.

Today, as this table from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows, Social Security is keeping more than 20 million Americans out of poverty:
http://www.offthechartsblog.org/happy-birthday-social-security/



As CBPP’s Kathy Ruffing noted, Social Security is “the single most important source of income for its elderly beneficiaries, contributing on average two-thirds of income for recipients over age 65. For more than one-third of them, Social Security constitutes 90 percent or more of income…Without Social Security, nearly half of elderly Americans would live below the official poverty level; instead, fewer than 10 percent do.”

Conservatives — aided by a media content to misinform about the program’s finances — love scaremongering about Social Security, despite the fact that it is exceedingly easy to secure its solvency for decades to come. Any talk of cutting its benefits ignores the very real impact that it has on elderly, disabled, and young Americans.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/14/690661/social-security-poverty-77/

[trof]

1. And Miz t. and I are two of them.

I'll soon be 71, she's 67.
We have a smallish IRA and a smallish pension.
If it weren't for S/S we'd be in deep shit.
As it is we're just treading water.

[sabrina 1]

2. The most brilliantly successful Fiscal Program ever and it was a Democratic Program.

And since the beginning, Right Wingers have been trying to destroy it.

Democrats should never stop boasting about this program and they should shove it in the faces of the Party with no good ideas every chance they get. A lot of people who love SS do not know it is a Democratic program.

Dems should be advertising it positively, making patches, lapel pins, flags with little sayings on them making it a part of the culture, making it even more untouchable than it is already.

Sort of how the Brits advertised their National Health Care system in the opening ceremony at the Olympics.

What great programs that benefit the people have the Republicans invented?

[woofless]

3. I'm one

and I'm only 60. I would likely be homeless, and quite possibly dead without SS and Medicare. Thank goodness I worked all my life. What a fantastic program.

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4. PRESIDENTIAL STATEMENT SIGNING THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT. AUGUST 14,1935

7. PRESIDENTIAL STATEMENT SIGNING THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT. AUGUST 14,1935

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. Young people have come to wonder what would be their lot when they came to old age. 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.

We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent 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.

This law, too, represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete. It is a structure intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions. It will act as a protection to future Administrations against the necessity of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy. The law will flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation. It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.

more at link
http://www.ssa.gov/history/fdrstmts.html#signing

What FDR said when he signed Social Security into law, 77 years ago today
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