Social Security turns 90 years old on August 14. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the program into law in 1935 during the Great Depression. Today, this federal program provides benefits to 70 million retired workers, disabled workers, and their families.
At the time the program was enacted, the world was still in the throes of the Great Depression, and, in the absence of welfare programs, poverty was rampant. At the height of the Depression in 1933, 24.9% of the total workforce (12,830,000 people) was unemployed. Things were better for those still employed, but not by much. Wage income for workers fell 42.5% between 1929 and 1933.
