Nelson H. Cruikshank
A PHILOSOPHY FOR SOCIAL SECURITY
by Nelson H. Cruikshank*
*Counselor to the President on Aging delivered Third Robert M. Ball Lecture on December 12, 1978, at National Headquarters of the Social Security Administration, Baltimore, Maryland.
Occasionally, when I find myself extolling the virtues of our Social Security system which was inaugurated in 1935, I am asked the question: "Why was the United States so tardy in accepting Social Security when Germany started in the 1880s and England passed its National Insurance Act in 1911?" My reply is that we did in fact address the problem of economic security for our people before any of these countries undertook their programs -- but we did it in our own unique way--based on our characteristic notions of what was both proper and workable.
America was a fast growing nation in the mid-19th Century. Our economy was essentially agricultural, but we were rapidly becoming industrialized. Our great resource was the land and we used its products -grain, cotton, and timber--to balance our trade with the already industrialized countries of Europe, notably England. Most of the equipment for our railroads and our industrial machinery was being manufactured there. But our wealth was the soil -millions of acres of wide prairie land waiting to be settled and tilled.
Land was looked upon then not only as a national resource, but as the soundest possible assurance of economic security for individuals. All a family needed for a secure old age or to ride out a period of depression was a quarter section of good land and a couple of sons to help farm it, or even a couple of daughters through whom able-bodied sons-in-law might be acquired. So ran the common conception.
The reliance on our land resources for individual economic security did not come automatically. There were those who wanted these areas to be developed and settled on the plantation pattern--large scale operations carried on by hired hands or slave labor. But in 1862, after 11 years of legislative wrangling, the landmark Homestead Act was passed and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. Thereafter, settlers who lived on the land and cultivated it could, with a nominal fee, acquire title to a quarter section of land.
Many who had opposed the Homestead Act argued the puritan ethic--the notion that it was wrong to give a valuable resource to individuals who had not earned it. But by accepting the Act's principles, the government built upon another entrenched notion--the strong social and moral values inherent in the family farm. It might have been wrong to give away land, but what could be more right than to provide security to families that proved their worthiness by enduring for five years the rigors of homesteading?
This concept of the role and purpose of government was not at all foreign to the President who described our--as "a Government of the People, by the People and for the People." Apparently, the idea of government against the people did not occur to Lincoln.
The American people, for the most part, are a compassionate people. Of course there persists among us a strong streak of puritanism, equating sin with being poor, suggesting that poverty must be the result of laziness or profligacy. For some, this is a rather comforting thought. For them, words of the psalmist, "I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread" are conveniently thrown into reverse. Thus, if one is forsaken or his children begging bread, it must surely be he is not righteous. So, the unemployed must be made to suffer a little, and if he happens to be on strike, his children must be denied food stamps. Otherwise, God's will to reward the worthy with prosperity and punish the sinner with poverty might be thwarted!
But somehow we manage to check many of these puritanical impulses, and find ways to permit our inclinations toward compassion to prevail. This is especially true in situations where need and deprivation are so widespread that it is difficult to ascribe sinfulness or profligacy to a great many of one's neighbors, members of one's family, or even one's self.
DEPRESSION OF THE THIRTIES
Such was the situation in the early thirties, out of which Social Security was born. Thousands upon thousands of hard-working farmers, who were just as willing to work as they ever had been, found themselves forced off their land. And in the cities, thousands of urban dwellers, who had lived according to all the rules, worked hard and saved their money, found themselves dispossessed. One out of every four of the workforce could not find a job.
A compassionate people raised relief funds, shared the shelter of their homes and bought more apples than they could eat from the unemployed, while farmers held the bidding on horses, cattle and machinery at foreclosure sales to a ridiculously low-level to save their neighbors from destitution. But it was not enough. Only the Federal Government was in a position to meet this crisis. And beginning with March 1933, it attempted to do so.
Emergency measures were launched to save the structure of our business and financial institutions. Other programs were designed to meet the immediate needs of a destitute people. Emergency relief mechanisms were put in motion. Nevertheless, these palliatives failed to reach the root of the problem. Thus it was that in June 1934 President Roosevelt appointed his Committee on Economic Security, composed of four Cabinet Members and the Federal Emergency Relief Director, and charged them with the monumental task of developing a program to meet the needs of the millions of unemployed, the elderly, and the young.
Government relief was still suspect. Such assistance might be needed to meet a widespread emergency, such as that which grew out of the Great Depression, but it did not fit into the notions or the traditions of an independent, self-reliant and frugal people. The problem then was to find a way to utilize the powers of government to meet these needs and still not challenge the traditional notions of what was acceptable. It was not an easy task, nor was it entirely new.
Once, as a young graduate student, I was confronted with the task of writing a thesis. Believing that this was a kind of arbitrary, academic requirement, not necessarily related to my primary interests, I decided to choose a subject in which one could not possibly get emotionally involved, where all of the evidence was already in and available in libraries, and where one could easily dispose of the chore on rainy weekends. Consequently, I hit upon this unlikely subject: "The Emergence of Monotheism in the Greek Tragedians." However, I was barely launched on the project before I realized that these old boys, writing almost twenty-five centuries ago, were confronted with a problem similar to that faced by any people of any period who tried to effect social change.
Back there in the fifth century, B.C., these philosopher-playwrights were not satisfied with the notion that the world was run by a bunch of warring demi-gods, unable to agree amongst themselves how to control the affairs of men. Had they any contact with the Jews of their day, they might have had an answer to their problem, but they didn't. Even if they had, the idea of unity to accompany their concepts of truth and beauty, would have proved anathema to a populace who believed devoutly in the existence of all the myriad creatures inhabiting Olympus. They had a message, but their vehicle was drama. And for their plays to be acted before their Greek audiences, they first had to win the prize. And, of course, the judges who awarded the prizes were thoroughly imbued with the concepts of polytheism.
So these ancient dramatists and philosophers-- Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides --wisely declined to challenge the Homeric tradition so dear to the judges. Had done so, their plays could never have been enacted and they would have found themselves in exile without an audience. So, in their plays the old Gods were still all there, but the realization was still conveyed that Oedipus and Agamemnon suffered the fates they did because of their specific characters--not because of the whims of some unpredictable member of Zeus' family. This was a radical notion twenty-five centuries ago.
INTERPRET BELIEFS IN CONTEXT OF NEEDS
Admittedly, it's a long leap from the problems of devising an American Social Security system. And I am not suggesting that the members of Roosevelt's Committee on Economic Security, and those on the Advisory Council on Economic Security, who helped develop our system, rushed to the Greek classics for solutions to their problems. I am suggesting, however, that from that ancient time down to the present, thinkers and philosophers and social planners who have successfully moved society forward have done so by being able to interpret accepted beliefs of the past within the context of current needs.
Whereas the Greek tragedians had to write plays acceptable to the contemporary mores and thought if they were to be presented to the Athenian audiences, so the designers of our Social Security system were compelled to devise a plan acceptable to a Congress steeped in the concepts and notions of a self-reliant and frugal people --a people who desired least of all to become objects of charity, dependent on welfare or wards of the government.
The success of the unique program which they developed attests not only to their ingenuity, but to their loyalty to the best traditions of our American ideal.
What are these traditional American concepts and values which were built into a system which, on the surface, seemed to represent such a departure from the tradition of individualism? They were, briefly, the traditional incentive for individual effort and initiative; the characteristic of self-help; the concomitant characteristic of mutual aid; and, most importantly, a thoroughly responsible and pragmatic approach to the mechanics of this unique system by its primary framers and supporters.
INCENTIVE FOR INDIVIDUAL EFFORT
In elaborating on these points, let's first look at the factor of incentive for individual effort.
In the Social Security system, this principle finds expression through relating the benefits to past earnings (though not on a one-to-one basis). The more willing a worker is to ].earn a trade, acquire a profession and climb the traditional ladder to higher income, the more sure the worker is of the means to a higher standard of living and continued security in old age. The worker knows, too, that these efforts assure more security for his family in case he or she can no longer fulfill the role of breadwinner if the worker is disabled or dies.
Our entire economic system has, as one of its major components, this wage incentive system. Higher wages for higher skills--larger pay for larger effort. The wage-based benefit program is part and parcel of that system. The record of wages earned, and return from self-employment, is just a mechanism for tabulating an individual's contribution to the economy through his labor during his working years. His benefits are based on that contribution.
SELF-HELP
So it is with the principle of self-help. Since the benefits an individual earns are his without proof of need, he is encouraged to add to them through individual savings, investments, or through participation in other group efforts to supplement the basic protection of his Social Security. These additional efforts do not jeopardize his right to his benefits.
MUTUAL AID
A similar spirit marks our tradition of mutual aid. We in America have long prided ourselves on our individualism and personal independence. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that our greatest achievements in either war or peace have been a result of the combined and organized efforts of these many individuals. Mutual aid is as much a part of our heritage as is individual effort. It is a characteristic of an effort as simple as a barn-raising or as complex as the development of a corporation which makes it possible for many individuals to enhance the usefulness of their savings by combining them with those of a great many others.
Let's turn for a moment to the vital components of this mutual aid--the mechanism by which it is implemented and, more broadly, the aspect of cooperation which has been the hallmark of our Social Security system.
The mechanism by which this mutual aid is implemented is the mechanism of insurance. I am well aware of the semantic battle that has gone on for the last forty years as to whether Social Security is insurance. For the most part, I think it is a silly battle, Insurance is simply a device for indemnifying or guaranteeing an individual against loss, out of a fund to which many individuals exposed to the same risk have contributed certain specified amounts called contributions or premiums. Since that describes the essential operation of the Social Security system, then the system may properly be called insurance.
It might be noted in passing that the word "insurance" is never used without a qualifier except when someone is trying to prove that something is not "insurance."
We have fire insurance, life insurance, indemnity insurance, casualty insurance, disability insurance, crop insurance, health insurance, and old-age and survivors insurance. To deny that any one of them is not insurance because it lacks one or all of the characteristics of one of the others is only an exercise in sophistry.
The important fact is that the American people found the whole idea acceptable. It was consistent with their concept of independence and frugality and individual dignity and self-reliance. It made it possible to make our puritan ethic compatible with our impulse to compassion and concern for our fellow citizens.
RESPONSIBLE AND PRAGMATIC APPROACH
Another major characteristic of the system may be summarized by the word cooperation. The cooperative principle is inherent in the method of financing the Social Security system, and was most eloquently described nearly 20 years ago by an Advisory Council established to examine the financial aspects of the program. This Council, composed largely of financial experts from business, labor and universities, set forth the essence of the system in these words:
"The contribution sets the tone of the program and its administration by making clear that this is not a program of government aid given to the individual, but rather a cooperative program in which the people use the instrument of government to provide protection for themselves and their families against loss of earnings resulting from old age, death and disability." (From: Financing Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance: A Report of the Advisory Council on Social Security Financing, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1959, p. 4,.)
That statement about the contribution and method of financing setting a tone for the system is of great significance.
In the first place, it establishes the participant's entitlement to benefits. Whether he has paid for the total amount of benefits out of his own contributions, or not, is irrelevant. The fact is that the pool from which his benefits are paid is composed of contributions based on work performed by him and his fellow workers as measured by the covered wages that have been paid them.
Secondly, this principle makes it acceptable to the public for the workers, through their representatives, to share a role in developing and administering the program. We don't have to look far to see what happens to a program originally designed for the protection of workers when the contributory principle is abandoned. We find it in our unemployment compensation programs where the employee contribution no longer exists. Employers pay the entire cost--at least they write checks to the Treasury to cover the costs. What part of it they pass on by way of increased prices for their products or reduced wages to their workers is not know. But the public and the Legislators seem to think that since the employers pay the fiddler, they should call the tune in all our State Unemployment Compensation programs. The result has been a constant erosion of the protection afforded workers by the system.
Thirdly, this principle imposes the restraint of fiscal responsibility on the program because, as stated by the Advisory Council, it is not a program of government assistance to citizens, but a cooperative one of mutual self-aid in which they share the costs by their contributions. As a result, the participants have a kind of proprietary sense of fiscal responsibility with respect to the program.
I would like to provide a specific instance of this as exhibited by a group of the system's major supporters--an example I experienced first hand, yet one I have never seen mentioned in any of the histories of our Social Security system.
Just after the merger of the American of Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1955, the Federation's newly-constituted Social Security Committee met to plan its legislative strategy for the upcoming session of Congress. This Committee was composed of elected officials of component unions. Out of the conventions of the two organizations, and out of the first convention of the merged Federation, came a number of resolutions calling for expansion and improvement of the Social Security system. The convention of the merged, new Federation referred these to the Committee for final action. In my capacity as Director of the AFL-CIO Social Security Department, I placed all these resolutions on the agenda for discussion at the morning session of the Committee. The Committee Members thought all of the proposals were good ones and in the interest of the working people. They tentatively approved all of them. However, I had had all of them priced out by actuaries, and after the lunch break I informed the Committee that the total cost of all the improvements, which they had tentatively approved, would add something over 10% of total payrolls to the cost of the system. I then asked them if they were prepared to go before Congress and before the public with demands of that magnitude. The answer was obvious.
The next step was to ask them to select their priorities and before they day was over they decided that the first major drive in the field of Social Security of the merged organization would be to extend the protection of the system to permanently and totally disabled workers. At that time this could be done at a total cost of one-half of one percent of covered payroll. Accordingly, this became the single legislative objective of the AFL-CIO in this area for 1956. You all know the result.
There were similar instances when national and international unions in convention had before them pressing demands to lower the age of eligibility for full Social Security benefits from 65 to 60. These were turned down again and again when the resolutions committee or the delegate bodies had explained to them that because of the high costs involved, the adoption of such a policy would probably result only in lower benefits across the board.
DYNAMISM OF THE SYSTEM
When the AFL-CIO building was constructed on its present site on 16th Street in Washington, the cornerstone was laid in 1955, actually before the merging of the two Federations. At that time, Mr. Meany asked the head of each department to select something typical of his work that could be put in the sealed box and inserted in the cornerstone so that at some time in the distant future, when the building might be razed, people curious about how the world looked in 1955 could open the box and get a glimpse of those days.
The contribution of my Department was a pamphlet which I had written called "Your Stake in the Social Security Trust Fund." At that time, we conceived of the system as being financed by a modified level premium. We were aware that the contributions paid by workers and their employers were currently in excess of benefit demands. But we also realized that there would be a time in the future when benefit demands would exceed the income from contributions.
There is a chart in this pamphlet which indicates that these two lines would cross in about the year 1980, and at that time, the fund in the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust would reach the stupendous level of about $80 million. Benefit demands were estimated in this chart at about $11 billion for the year in 1980. It was estimated they would reach the tremendous height of $14 and one-half billion by the year 2000, by which year the contribution income would be about $12 and three-quarters billion. But the pamphlet exhorted the workers not to worry because the interest on the trust fund at the generous rate of 2 3/4% would make up the difference between the in-come and the out-go.
Certainly the chart is out-of-date, and it failed to predict the dynamism of our economy, let alone the effect of inflation. The essential point of the chart, however, remains true because we were assuring workers that their future benefits were guaranteed by the existence of a trust fund which was held in government securities. The bonds were the instruments indicating the good faith of the government of the United States.
As the system matured, our concept and understanding of the way it worked matured as well. Later we acknowledged the fact that since making good on the bonds depended on the continuing ability of the government to levy taxes, and since the intention to make good on the bonds in which the future security of the incomes of workers rested was simply a matter of the good faith of the government as well as its ability to tax, there was no real purpose in that intermediate step of Government bonds. So we moved to what we called a more-nearly pay-as-you-go system.
We no longer relied on the interest of trust fund to assure future payments since that ultimately rested on the good faith the government, anyway. Also, we have accepted the fact, that with all its consequences, that if we trusted the government to pay back on its bonds, we could also trust it to make good on its obligations to workers as a result of the workers forgoing a part of their current disposable income by diverting a part of each paycheck to Social Security.
The essential element of this system is the fact that the working people of the country have put their faith in the integrity of the government and its pledge to make good on the promises set forth in the benefit schedules of the Social Security program. It must be recognized, therefore, that the obligation to meet these promises is just as much a binding obligation as the obligation to redeem Treasury bills, or any other obligations of the government, at face value upon maturity, as well as to pay the rate of interest designated in the certificate of indebtedness, whatever that may be.
BASIC PRINCIPLES CHALLENGED
While this principle is still valid, it stands threatened today as a result of the decision made in 1969 to combine the trust fund accounts with the general fund of the Treasury in a consolidated budget. Prior to that time, the President reported to Congress the operation of the trust funds separately from all other items in the budget. While the budget now incorporates the operation of the trust fund, it is still possible to retain the concept of separability and to keep it clear in the public mind that this consolidated budget actually covers two quite different kinds of accounts involving different kinds of obligations. The Advisory Council of 1971 commented on this cogently in these words:
"Even though the operations of the social security trust funds and other Federal trust fund programs are combine with the general operations of the Federal Government in the unified Federal budget, policy decisions affecting the social security program should be based on the objectives of the program rather than on any effect that such decisions might have on the Federal budget." (From: House Document No. 92-80, "Reports of the 1971 Advisory Council on Social Security, " U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.)
Those who would propose that the government go back on any of its commitments with resp to scheduled benefits in order to reduce the deficit position of the Federal budget for any fiscal year must be reminded that they are tampering, not only with a schedule of benefits, but from the point of view of tho who support the system by their payroll contributions, they are tampering with the good faith of the United States Government.
I do not mean to say by this that the present schedule of benefits in every detail is set in concrete for all time. There may be accidental and unanticipated windfalls imbedded in some of the complicated benefit formulae. Certainly this was the case with respect to the "decoupling" issue which was dealt with in the 1977 Amendments.
As you will recall, it was discovered that in the benefit formula, including the adjustments for possible continued inflation, a condition might well arise where some workers upon retirement would receive benefits considerably in excess of the incomes they had earned prior to retirement. This was corrected and I suppose the correction might be called a reduction of benefits. But the fact is that these accidental excessive payments were never realistically within the expectations of the working people who support the system.
Where there may be similar unintended departures from the basic principles of the system and departures from the expectations of the workers who support it by their payroll contributions, I am sure there will be no objection to removing them. But those responsible for developing legislation in this field must keep in mind that policy decisions affecting the Social Security program must be based on the objectives of the program rather than on any effect that such decisions may have on the Federal budget. Any departure from this principle would indicate to the working people of this country that the promises of the government are not to be relied upon and the good faith on which the whole system operates, would be undermined.
In brief, those in both the Executive and the Legislative branches of the government must understand that expenditures from trust fund accounts are not among the discretionary expenditures. They represent fixed obligations of the government. There may be no notes or special issue of bonds to record this obligation, but in the minds of the working people of this country the issue is a simple one: "Is Uncle Sam's word as good as his bond?"
The question is properly raised as to whether the contributory principle is of such nature as to preclude some support for the system out of the general revenues of government. I believe that the principle can be retained while at the same time partially supporting the program from general revenues.
Some have suggested this position on the ground that, in the early period of the system's operation, workers cannot have made contributions sufficient to pay for the benefits they will receive, and that government support is therefore appropriate as a form of covering the cost of prior service. This is one way to look at it to be sure and I don't take issue with that position. However, I believe that there is a sounder reason for supporting the system in-part out of general revenues.
I rest my case for such support on the fact that the system not only insures all the participating individuals against loss of all of their earned income in the event of certain contingencies, but by being as nearly universal in coverage as it is, it also provides an important support for the operation of our economic system. Social Security as it now operates, along with other support systems, pretty well guarantees against any such general financial collapse as occurred in the period of the great depression.
The benefits payable to workers who have lost their incomes because of retirement, death of the family breadwinner or disability, make an assured income available to vast numbers of people who, lacking such income, would be the objects of public welfare programs. And these, of course, would be financed out of the general revenues of the states or the Federal Government.
Since the treasuries of the governments are relieved of this burden by the existence of the Social Security system, it is only right and proper that support should come to the system from these sources in addition to the support that comes from employer payroll taxes and the workers' contributions. So in my view, it is entirely possible to have a system in which the public at large, through government contributions, pays its fair share of the system from which it derives indirect benefits, and which at the same time preserves all of those essential values that derive from a contributory system.
PROGRAM LEADERSHIP AND ADMINISTRATION IS IMPORTANT
I, personally, have never been an employee of the Social Security Administration or of its predecessor--the Social Security Board. I have been an interested outsider, observing the operation of the program and its effect on those whom I have tried to represent in other capacities. I must say, however, that I rather envy those of vou who are identified with the administration of this program. You can be proud of your jobs and proud of your role in what is by all odds the most successful major agency of our government. It is the most effective force in our continuing war against poverty. It is the agency through which the innate compassion of the American people is expressed to their fellow citizens, while preserving those moral values of dignity, self-reliance and self-respect which are so important to the life of America.
During World War II, I worked in the War Manpower Commission. Those of vou who were around in that period will remember that with so large a part of our normal workforce in the armed forces and with such heavy demands on our capacity for industrial production, many people were drawn into the labor force for the first time.
I recall a time when we were getting continuing complaints in some of our aircraft plants that among these young recruits there was a high turnover, low morale, and persistent absenteeism. Upon investigating the situation, I concluded that one of the problems concerned the routine nature of the jobs together with a lack of any understanding of the meaningfulness of what these workers were doing. And when you went to the bench, where many, for example, were engaged in inspecting tiny parts of airplane engines--all day long measuring little bits of these parts by what was called a "go" and a "no-go" gauge--I could understand that it was a pretty unrewarding and monotonous job.
We then arranged with the Air Force to fly some bombers into some of the plants and park them on the ramps near the factory gates. Near them were arranged tables with these tiny parts on which these industrial recruits were working arrayed with streamers attached to them leading to the parts installed in various parts of the bombers. Young pilots stood by to explain what would happen if one of these parts passed inspection, when in fact, it did not meet the specifications and might cause engine failure some night when a pilot was trying to steer his craft through darkness punctuated only by enemy flack. The result was a dramatic fall-off in absenteeism and a noticeable improvement in morale.
It was simply a matter of their being able to relate the routine and monotonous work required of them with a significant part of the war effort.
Sometimes today, when I visit a Security office, I am forced to that the attitudes are somewhat from those that would have been some years ago. There seems to of appreciation of the ultimate the great significance of this marvelous program. It makes me wish it were possible to have something comparable to the bomber parked on the ramp by the factory gate. For I wish it were possible to convey to every person--from the lowliest clerks or receptionists and the local office managers, through the regional managers and all the way to the Commissioner's office, itself-the vital connection between the routine jobs you are called upon to perform and the successful conduct of this gigantic effort to maintain the dignity and independence of America's workers.
This is most important for there is a direct connection between maintaining proper files and meeting the needs of people, just as in the national office there is indeed a connection, though it is sometimes hard to see, between arguing for your budget or struggling with personnel problems or wrestling with the General Services Administration over space needs and the ultimate purposes of the program.
There is a phenomenon in our American life which I have never quite understood, and that is the way in which an individual leader can have a significant impact upon even the largest of organizations.
Even huge corporations have a kind of personality, and a customer or consumer can sense the difference between a well-led and properly-administered institution and one which does not enjoy those advantages. Large as this Agency is now, it still carries the impact of administrators who were also leaders like Arthur Altmeyer and Robert Ball.
This series of lectures, supported as it is by donations of the employees, is evidence of the response of these employees to the high quality of leadership they have enjoyed.
In the long run, however, the destiny of the institution rests in the hands of those who carry on the daily work of its programs. It is they who will determine by their attitudes toward their work whether the institution will be true to the names of the great men and women who have laid down its basic principles, and who developed the institutional structures to make those principles a reality in the lives of the people the program was designed to serve.
In closing, I will draw once more upon the Greek playwrights. Sophocles, in his observed that "of all human ills, greatest is fortune's wayward tyranny."
It is your mission, and that of our Social Security system, to ease the "wayward tyranny" of fortune for millions-upon millions of our fellow Americans--both today and tomorrow.
Selected Readings on the Beginnings of Social Security
1. Abbott, Grace, From Relief to Social Security: The Development of the New Public Welfare Services and Their Administration University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1941, 388 pp.
2. Altmeyer, Arthur J., The Formative Years of Social Security, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1966, 314 PP.
3. Brown, J. Douglas, An American Philosophy of Social Security: Evolution and Issues, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1972, 244 pp.
4. Cohen, Wilbur J., "The First Twenty-Five Years of the Social Security Act; 1935-1960", Social Work Year Book 1960, National Association of Social Workers, New York, 1960, pp. 49-62.
5. Epstein, Abraham, Insecurity: A Challenge to America: A Study of Social Insurance in the United States and Abroad (3rd revised edition), Random House, New York, 1936, 821 pp.
6. Haber, William, and Cohen, Wilbur J., (eds.) Readings in Social Security, Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York, 1948, 643 pp.
7. Lampman, Robert J., Social Security Perspectives: Essays by Edwin E. Witte, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1962, 419 pp.
8. Lubove, Roy, The Struggle for Social Security 1900-1935, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1968, 276 pp.
9. McKinley, Charles, and Frase, Robert W., Launching Social Security: A Capture-And-Record Account 1935-1937, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1970, 519 PP.
10. Mitchell, Broadus, The Economic History of the United States, Vol. IX, "Depression Decade: From New Era Through New Deal, 1929-1941" Rinehart and Co., New York, 1955, 463 PP.
11. Perkins, Frances, The Roosevelt I Knew, Harper and Row, New York, 1964 (paperback edition), 409 pp.
12. Rubinow, I. M. The Quest For Security , Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1934; 683 pp.
13. Schlabach, Theron J., Edwin E. Witte: Cautious Reformer, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, 1969, 290 pp.
14. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., The Age of Roosevelt-The Coming of the New Deal, Houghton-Mifflin Co., Boston, 1958, 669 pp.
15. Social Security In America:The Factual Background of the Social Security Act as Summarized From Staff Reports to the Committee on Economic Security, Social Security Board Publication No. 20, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1937, 592 pp.
16. Witte, Edwin E., The Development of the Social Security Act, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1962, 220 pp.
EDITORIAL NOTE:
About 10 publications are expected to be printed in the series captioned "The Beginnings of Social Security." This publication is in that series. In addition, the selected, annotated bibliography entitled Basic Readings In Social Security, published by SSA's Office of Research and Statistics, contains many additional readings relating to the beginnings of social security.