Social Security Program Paper

Social Security Program Paper

FINC 321

March 3, 2013 

Imagine for a moment that the economy is at its peak with people getting loans from the bank to purchase a house at an all time high, stockholders observing their stock portfolio growing, and unemployment is at a low. Now picture almost overnight the stock market plummeting at record lows with investors essentially losing their life’s savings. As a result people are committing suicide being faced with the reality that they just lost their life’s savings in stock. This isn’t an imaginary story that I conjured up but these events really happened during the time period of the 1930s, which is known in history as the Great Depression. The Great Depression lasted for about a decade and was a rough period of time for American families. You had soldiers returning from war missing limbs and using drugs to cope with Post Traumatic Stress Disorders, families becoming homeless due the head of the house being unemployed for so long, women getting jobs, which was uncommon at this time, and getting paid less because of their gender, old people unable to work anymore because of their age, and medically disabled folks unable to work because of their medical conditions. The current President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, during this period stepped in and created a program to attempt to get the economy back on it’s feet. The name of the program is called the Social Security Act. This paper will discuss the history of the Social Security Program, current structure, calculation of benefits, and other programs available from the program for people that qualify.

When President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935 the intent as expressed by Martin & Weaver (2005), “The Act created several programs that, even today, form the basis for the government’s role in providing income security, specifically, the old-age insurance, unemployment insurance, and Aid to Families with Dependent...