1935 Congressional Debates on Social Security

The Social Security Act of 1935 was vigorously debated on the floor of both the House and Senate.

The Senate debates began on May 20, 1935 and concluded with the final vote for passage on June 19, 1935. This debate filled 126 pages in the Congressional Record of that time.

The House debates were even more extensive. The debate began on April 5, 1935 and was concluded on April 19, 1935. About 350 pages of the Congressional Record was filled with the House consideration of the bill.

We are reproducing the full text of the Senate and House debates from the Congressional Record of 1935, in Adobe PDF format.

NOTE: The quality of some of these scanned images is not high. However, these materials are relatively rare and hard to find for users who do not have ready access to a large library. We hope that reproducing them here, even in this limited form, will make them much more accessible to a wider audience of researchers.