Federal Aid for Unemployment.
The depression which began in 1929 threw millions out of work and caused economic distress throughout the country. By 1931, there were 10,000,000 unemployed. In 1935, 18,000,000 were on relief. That meant one out of every seven in the whole population. Congress set up a Public Works Administration with funds to build dams, power plants, highways, schools, hospitals, post offices, and other public projects, to help absorb the unemployed. Emergency relief had been established by the Civil Works Administration to provide temporary relief by putting people to work on hastily devised jobs of digging ditches, widening streets, and repairing public buildings.
Social Security.
The first old-age pension law was passed in Germany in the days of Bismarck, in 1889. Similar laws were passed in France and Great Britain before the close of the nineteenth century. The first state to pass an old-age pension law was Arizona in 1914, only to find the law rendered unconstitutional by the state supreme court. In 1915, the Alaska territory enacted such a law, and legislation to that effect was passed in Montana, Nevada, and Pennsylvania in 1923. By 1940 every state had some kind of old-age pension system in force, but these laws provided for a maximum of about $ 25 to $ 30 a month, hardly sufficient to buy food and shelter.
In 1935 was enacted the Federal Social Security Act. By this law the Federal government promised to match dollar for dollar the money spent by states in the assistance of old-age pensions.
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