Social Security Act

About the Author

A number of key persons were involved in crafting the legislation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) provided the impetus. He had been influenced by his older cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, the twenty-sixth president of the United States and a champion of Progressive causes. Elected to the New York state senate in 1910, Roosevelt began to develop his own sense of the role of government in society. As governor of New York, Roosevelt argued for social insurance as early as 1930. He believed that Social Security was one of the crowning accomplishments of his presidency.

Frances Perkins (1882–1965), Roosevelt's secretary of labor, served as chairperson of the CES. Perkins graduated from Mount Holyoke College and received a master's degree from Columbia University. She was executive secretary of the Consumer's League in New York City from 1910 to 1912, during which time she witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Perkins was Roosevelt's State Industrial Commissioner when he was governor of New York. In 1931 she traveled to the United Kingdom to research that country's old-age pension and unemployment insurance plans. Upon her return, she worked to persuade Roosevelt to pursue such plans and was thus instrumental in the development of Roosevelt's concept of Social Security.

Edwin Witte (1887–1960) is often referred to as “the father of the Social Security Act.” He received his bachelor's degree and doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, where he studied with the economist John Commons, an early proponent of labor reforms. Witte was also influenced by the Wisconsin Progressive movement; Wisconsin was the first state to adopt an unemployment insurance plan. As executive director and research synthesizer for the CES, Witte drafted the committee's report and was instrumental in negotiating various modifications required to ensure that the Social Security Act would pass.