Congressional Digest

Excerpt

In his September 30, 1934, Fireside Chat, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told Americans, “Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order.” Therefore, he added, “we must make it a national principle that we will not tolerate a large army of unemployed and that we will arrange our national economy to end our present unemployment as soon as we can and then to take wise measures against its return.”

Almost a year later, Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act, which established the mechanism for today’s Federal-St…