FDR Signs Social Security Act

On August 14, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, establishing a landmark federal program that would fundamentally change the relationship between the American government and its citizens. Created during the depths of the Great Depression, the legislation sought to provide greater economic security for older Americans, the unemployed and other vulnerable members of society.

When Roosevelt took office in 1933, the United States was suffering through the worst economic crisis in its history. Banks had failed, businesses had collapsed, and millions of Americans were unemployed. Older Americans were particularly vulnerable. Many had lost their savings, while others had little or no reliable income after they were no longer able to work. At the time, there was no nationwide system guaranteeing financial assistance to people in retirement.

Roosevelt made economic security a central component of his New Deal. In 1934, he created the Committee on Economic Security and tasked it with developing proposals to protect Americans against the financial hardships associated with old age, unemployment and other circumstances beyond their control.

The resulting Social Security Act was passed by Congress in 1935. Its best-known provision established a system of old-age benefits for retired workers, financed through payroll taxes paid by workers and employers. The law also created a federal-state unemployment insurance program and provided assistance for certain vulnerable groups, including dependent children and people with disabilities.

When Roosevelt signed the measure on August 14, he described it as an important step toward providing Americans with greater economic protection. The program was not intended to guarantee prosperity or eliminate every financial risk. Instead, it created a basic level of security that could help protect individuals and families from economic catastrophe.

The original Social Security program differed considerably from the system Americans know today. Many workers were initially excluded from coverage, and the program expanded significantly in the decades that followed. Amendments eventually extended coverage to millions of additional workers and added benefits for spouses, survivors and people with disabilities. Medicare, enacted three decades later in 1965, further expanded the federal government’s role in supporting older Americans by providing health insurance to those 65 and older.

Social Security quickly became one of the most consequential and enduring programs to emerge from Roosevelt’s New Deal. The first monthly retirement benefit check was issued in 1940 to Ida May Fuller of Vermont, a retired legal secretary who became the program’s first monthly beneficiary.

More than 90 years after Roosevelt put his signature on the legislation, Social Security remains a central part of retirement planning and economic security in the United States. Tens of millions of Americans receive retirement, disability or survivor benefits through the program each year.

The signing on August 14, 1935, represented more than the creation of a government benefit. It established a lasting principle in American public policy: that workers could contribute throughout their careers to a nationwide system designed to provide a measure of financial security when they—and their families—needed it most.