The Development of Federal Old-Age Policy in the Era of the Great Depression: Pensions, Policies, and Politics, 1920–1940

Abstract

Even before the Depression struck, most of the nation's public pension and retirement funds came from federal sources, in the form of veterans' and civil servants' benefits. In 1935, Congress drew upon these earlier programs to create the first national pension program under Title II of the Social Security Act. Unlike the other programs established by the Act, Old Age Insurance (OAI) provided for direct payments to individuals, thus bypassing often discriminatory state-controlled administration of social welfare programs. In its method of funding and in the patterns of inclusion and exclusion it evidenced, this OAI measure established the basis for what has become a generally successful program of social support. However, OAI's reliance on work history has had adverse gender effects owing to its reliance on employment rather than on common citizenship as the determinant of benefits.