who was eligible to receive social security when it was created in 1935
History of Social Security in the United States The Act provided benefits to retirees and the unemployed, and a lump-sum benefit at death. Payments to current retirees are financed by a payroll tax on current workers' wages, half directly as a payroll tax and half paid by the employer. The act also gave money to states to provide assistance to aged individuals (Title I), for unemployment insurance (Title III), Aid to Families with Dependent Children (Title IV), Maternal and Child Welfare (Title V), public health services (Title VI), and the blind (Title X).[3]
Social Security Act In the Second New Deal, the Social Security Act was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. The act laid the groundwork for the modern welfare system in the United States, with its primary focus to provide aid for the elderly, the unemployed, and children. Industrialization and the urbanization in the 19th Century created many new social problems, and transformed ideas of how society and the government should function together because of them. As industry expanded, cities grew quickly to keep up with demand for labor. Tenement houses were built quickly and poorly, cramming new migrants from farms and Southern and Eastern European immigrants into tight and unhealthy spaces. Work spaces were even more unsafe.[2] In 1890, Jacob Riis wrote that “the quick change of economic conditions in the city…often out paces all plans of relief.”[citation needed]