The emergency caused by the depression in the U.S. did not cre ate these problems. But by aggravating them, it brought about the long-delayed acceptance of the need for national action to meet nation-wide needs. As a result, the 1930's saw great advances in this area of Government service. Of these, the most significant is the recognition of social legislation as a major concern of the Fed eral Government as well as of its States and their localities. The various forms of Federal social legislation in operation in 1939 were all outgrowths of measures originally carried on by State or local governmental agencies or by private organizations. In the main, local measures for public relief took the form of providing almshouses in which at first all classes of the poor were housed to gether. This has been described as a device of society to remove its failures from its sight and so enable it to forget them. Later, specialized homes for separate indigent classes were established, and so came into existence insane asylums, orphans' homes, and homes for the aged. This remained the principal method of taking care of the needy through the first two decades of the 2oth century.
Shortly after 190o, however, it began to be recognized that in many cases the aged, the blind, and dependent children would be more effectively provided for, if they could be given a cash allow ance in their own homes. If this kind of assistance were to be provided, it was apparent that the States must share the responsi bility. Provision for care by their own families of dependent chil dren—that is, children whose fathers had died or who were other wise deprived of their natural means of livelihood—was first recognized as a State responsibility by Oklahoma in 1908 when that State passed a law providing a widowed mother of a school age child with a small allowance in lieu of the possible earnings of the child, so that he might remain in school. From 1911 on, the need and desirability of "mother's aid" gained recognition ; and by 1934, 45 States, Alaska, and Hawaii and the District of Columbia had some provision for granting public aid to maintain dependent children in their own homes.
The first State legislation providing for old-age pensions de signed to enable old people to live in their own homes went into operation in Montana in 1923. The only such law previously in effect in the United States or its territories was one passed by Alaska in 1915. In 1933, nine States, and Hawaii initiated old-age pension laws, and at the end of that year there were laws of this nature on the statute books of 26 States, Alaska, and Hawaii.
State legislation for the blind, developed since the turn of the century, has related to providing educational and vocational train ing, principally for children, establishing workshops for adults, providing for locating the blind and extending to them medical assistance and help in procuring employment, and giving cash grants. In Aug. 1935, 27 States had laws providing for such cash payments.
But the States and their localities in most instances were able to make only small payments to those for whom these forms of special aid were intended and in some States the laws were never put into operation. Depression conditions served only to empha size the already apparent fact that many States were unable to carry this responsibility without Federal aid. In the Social Secur ity Act of 1935, Congress made provision for granting Federal funds to the States, on a matching basis, to aid them in giving public assistance to needy old people, to families with dependent children, and to needy blind persons. All the States were in 1939 co-operating in one or more of these three programs.
The Federal agency concerned in these three programs is the Social Security Board. Largest of the organizations embraced in the Federal Security Agency, the Board also acts for the Federal Government in the two social insurance programs established by the Social Security Act. (See below under Social Security Act.) These programs—old-age and survivors insurance and unem ployment compensation—are significant not only for their national scope, but also for the new point of view which they embody. Recognizing that the risk of dependency is widespread when the mass of people must depend for security on current wage earning, they provide a method of spreading wages through social insurance. Old-age and survivors insurance is a Federally administered plan under which industrial and commercial workers and their employ ers contribute equally. Protection is provided in the form of monthly benefits, the amount being based on the worker's own wages and length of employment in jobs covered by the system. As originally enacted in 1935, this program provided old-age bene fits for wage-earners upon retirement after age 65. Amendments passed by Congress in 1939 substantially broadened the system by recognizing the needs of the family as well as the individual worker. Supplementary benefits are (early 1940) provided for aged wives or dependent children of annuitants, and monthly benefits are paid to certain survivors if an insured worker dies either before or after retirement.