# The Social Security Act

An episode of [Letters from an American](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1730358737), 15 Aug 2026, 12 min.

Audio: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/211351747/836de8c6096896e5efc5bc90381cbfaa.mp3

August 14, 2026 The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to allow it to build his White House Ballroom, The National Trust of Historic Preservation has sued to stop construction, Asking to spend taxpayer money on a vanity project is a stark contract to the actions of the government 91 years ago, On August 14, 1935, FDR signed the Social Security Act into law, The Social Security Act permanently changed the nature of the American government, It enabled a federal system of benefits, providing a basic social safety net, The force behind the law was Frances Perkins, FDR’s secretary of labor, A witness to the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, she knew voluntary organizations would not be sufficient to improve worker’s lives, The Social Security Act was hugely popular, The Act wrote into the law a longstanding political impulse that stood in contrast to the 1920s philosophy of rugged individualism, recognizing that pooling resources to take care of everyone was deeply seated, She asserted that Social Security was so firmly embedded in America’s psychology that no one could destroy it. Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ- Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe You can also find me: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

## Transcript

[0:00] SPEAKER_00: August 14, 2026.
[0:03] SPEAKER_00: Today, the Trump administration asked the United States Supreme Court
[0:08] SPEAKER_00: to let it build Trump's ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to be.
[0:12] SPEAKER_00: Trump ignored Congress and its authority over government building projects
[0:16] SPEAKER_00: when he tore down the East Wing and began construction of
[0:20] SPEAKER_00: a 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the site.
[0:25] SPEAKER_00: He claimed initially that there would be no cost to taxpayers for what he estimated
[0:29] SPEAKER_00: to be a $200 million project.
[0:32] SPEAKER_00: Already, estimates have risen to at least $900 million to be covered primarily by taxpayers.
[0:41] SPEAKER_00: The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued to stop construction,
[0:45] SPEAKER_00: and lower courts have agreed,
[0:47] SPEAKER_00: saying the ballroom requires congressional approval,
[0:50] SPEAKER_00: although they have permitted construction of an underground bunker to continue.
[0:55] SPEAKER_00: On August 7th, an appeals court wrote, Until now.
[1:17] SPEAKER_00: Nonetheless, construction has continued, and now U.S.
[1:21] SPEAKER_00: Solicitor General D.
[1:22] SPEAKER_00: John Sauer is telling the Supreme Court the ballroom is critical
[1:26] SPEAKER_00: for national security and that it is too late to stop the project.
[1:30] SPEAKER_00: He claims it is 65 percent complete and has a 250-person crew working 20 hours
[1:38] SPEAKER_00: a day, seven days a week to keep the project ahead of schedule and under budget.
[1:44] SPEAKER_00: The administration wants the Supreme Court to step in
[1:47] SPEAKER_00: to allow Trump's vanity project to continue.
[1:52] SPEAKER_00: The timing of Trump's request that the Supreme Court allow him to ignore Congress
[1:57] SPEAKER_00: and the law in order to spend taxpayer money on a vanity project provides
[2:03] SPEAKER_00: a dramatic contrast to the actions of the government 91 years ago.
[2:09] SPEAKER_00: On August 14,
[2:10] SPEAKER_00: 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law.
[2:17] SPEAKER_00: While he had already put in place new measures to regulate business and banking
[2:22] SPEAKER_00: and had provided temporary work relief to combat the Depression,
[2:26] SPEAKER_00: this law permanently changed the nature of the American government.
[2:32] SPEAKER_00: The Social Security Act established a federal system of old age benefits,
[2:37] SPEAKER_00: unemployment insurance,
[2:39] SPEAKER_00: aid to homeless,
[2:40] SPEAKER_00: dependent,
[2:40] SPEAKER_00: and neglected children,
[2:42] SPEAKER_00: funds to promote maternal and child welfare, and public health services.
[2:48] SPEAKER_00: It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship between the government
[2:52] SPEAKER_00: and its citizens,
[2:53] SPEAKER_00: using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net.
[3:00] SPEAKER_00: The driving force behind the law was FDR's Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins.
[3:06] SPEAKER_00: She was the first woman to hold a U.S.
[3:08] SPEAKER_00: Cabinet position and still holds the record for having the longest tenure in that job.
[3:13] SPEAKER_00: She served from 1933 to 1945.
[3:18] SPEAKER_00: Perkins brought to the position a vision of government very different from that of
[3:22] SPEAKER_00: the Republicans who had run it in the 1920s.
[3:26] SPEAKER_00: While men like President Herbert Hoover had embraced the idea of
[3:29] SPEAKER_00: a rugged individualism in which men provided for their families on their own,
[3:35] SPEAKER_00: Perkins recognized that the vision of a hardworking man supporting his wife
[3:39] SPEAKER_00: and children was more myth than reality.
[3:43] SPEAKER_00: Her own husband suffered from bipolar disorder, making her the family's primary support.
[3:49] SPEAKER_00: She understood that Americans had always supported each other.
[3:54] SPEAKER_00: As a child,
[3:55] SPEAKER_00: Perkins spent summers with her grandmother,
[3:57] SPEAKER_00: with whom she was very close,
[3:59] SPEAKER_00: in the small town of Newcastle, Maine, surrounded by a supportive community.
[4:05] SPEAKER_00: In college,
[4:06] SPEAKER_00: at Mount Holyoke,
[4:07] SPEAKER_00: she majored in chemistry and physics,
[4:09] SPEAKER_00: but after a professor required students to tour a factory
[4:12] SPEAKER_00: to observe working conditions,
[4:14] SPEAKER_00: Perkins became committed to improving the lives of those trapped in industrial jobs.
[4:20] SPEAKER_00: After college,
[4:21] SPEAKER_00: Perkins became a social worker and in 1910 earned a master's degree in economics
[4:26] SPEAKER_00: and sociology from Columbia University.
[4:30] SPEAKER_00: She became the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League,
[4:34] SPEAKER_00: urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for
[4:39] SPEAKER_00: the workers who made the products they were buying.
[4:43] SPEAKER_00: The next year,
[4:44] SPEAKER_00: in 1911,
[4:45] SPEAKER_00: she witnessed a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in which 146 workers,
[4:51] SPEAKER_00: mostly women and girls, died.
[4:54] SPEAKER_00: They were trapped in the building when the fire broke out because
[4:57] SPEAKER_00: the factory owner had ordered the doors to the stairwells and exits locked
[5:01] SPEAKER_00: to make sure no one slipped outside for a break.
[5:04] SPEAKER_00: Unable to escape the smoke and flames,
[5:07] SPEAKER_00: the workers,
[5:08] SPEAKER_00: some of them on fire,
[5:09] SPEAKER_00: leaped from the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building, dying on the pavement.
[5:16] SPEAKER_00: The Triangle Shirtwaist fire proved to Perkins
[5:19] SPEAKER_00: that voluntary organizations would never be enough to improve workers' lives.
[5:24] SPEAKER_00: She turned toward using the government to adjust the harsh conditions of industrialization.
[5:30] SPEAKER_00: She began to work with the Democratic politicians at Tammany Hall,
[5:34] SPEAKER_00: who presided over communities in the city that mirrored rural towns and
[5:39] SPEAKER_00: who exercised a form of social welfare for their workers,
[5:43] SPEAKER_00: making sure they had jobs, food,
[5:45] SPEAKER_00: and shelter,
[5:46] SPEAKER_00: and that wives and children had a support network if a husband and father died.
[5:52] SPEAKER_00: In that system,
[5:53] SPEAKER_00: the voices of women like Perkins were valuable,
[5:56] SPEAKER_00: for their work in the immigrant wards of the city meant that they were the ones
[6:00] SPEAKER_00: who knew what working families needed to survive.
[6:04] SPEAKER_00: The overwhelming unemployment, hunger,
[6:07] SPEAKER_00: and suffering during the Great Depression convinced Perkins
[6:10] SPEAKER_00: that state governments alone could not adjust the conditions of the modern world
[6:15] SPEAKER_00: to create a safe, supportive community for ordinary people.
[6:20] SPEAKER_00: She came to believe that,
[6:22] SPEAKER_00: as she said,
[6:22] SPEAKER_00: the people are what matter to government,
[6:25] SPEAKER_00: and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction
[6:30] SPEAKER_00: the best possible life.
[6:33] SPEAKER_00: Perkins met FDR through her Tammany connections,
[6:36] SPEAKER_00: and when he asked her to be a Secretary of Labor,
[6:39] SPEAKER_00: she told him that she wanted the federal government
[6:41] SPEAKER_00: to provide unemployment insurance, health insurance, and old age insurance.
[6:47] SPEAKER_00: She later recalled,
[6:48] SPEAKER_00: I remember he looked so startled, and he said, Well, do you think it can be done?
[6:54] SPEAKER_00: Creating federal unemployment insurance became her primary concern.
[6:59] SPEAKER_00: Congressmen had little interest in passing such legislation,
[7:03] SPEAKER_00: claiming that unemployment insurance and federal aid
[7:05] SPEAKER_00: to dependent families would undermine a man's willingness to work.
[7:10] SPEAKER_00: But Perkins recognized that the Depression had added pressure to the idea
[7:14] SPEAKER_00: of social insurance by emphasizing the needs of older Americans.
[7:20] SPEAKER_00: In Long Beach,
[7:21] SPEAKER_00: California, Dr.
[7:22] SPEAKER_00: Francis Townsend had looked out of his window one day to see elderly women rooting
[7:27] SPEAKER_00: through garbage cans for food.
[7:30] SPEAKER_00: Appalled,
[7:30] SPEAKER_00: he came up with a plan to help the elderly and stimulate the economy at
[7:34] SPEAKER_00: the same time.
[7:36] SPEAKER_00: Townsend proposed that the government provide every retired person over 60 years old
[7:42] SPEAKER_00: with $200 a month on the condition that they spend it within 30 days,
[7:47] SPEAKER_00: a condition designed to stimulate the economy.
[7:51] SPEAKER_00: Townsend's plan was wildly popular.
[7:55] SPEAKER_00: More than that, though,
[7:56] SPEAKER_00: it sparked people across the country to start coming up with their own plans
[8:00] SPEAKER_00: for protecting the elderly and the nation's social fabric.
[8:07] SPEAKER_00: Perkins recalled that Townsend startled the Congress of the United States because
[8:12] SPEAKER_00: the aged have votes.
[8:15] SPEAKER_00: The wandering boys didn't have any votes.
[8:17] SPEAKER_00: The evicted women and their children had very few votes.
[8:21] SPEAKER_00: If the unemployed didn't stay long enough in any one place, they didn't have a vote.
[8:26] SPEAKER_00: But the aged people lived in one place and they had votes,
[8:30] SPEAKER_00: so every congressman had heard from the Townsend Plan people.
[8:35] SPEAKER_00: FDR put together a committee to come up with a plan,
[8:38] SPEAKER_00: but committee members could not make up their minds how to move forward.
[8:42] SPEAKER_00: Perkins continued to hammer on the idea they must come up with something,
[8:47] SPEAKER_00: and finally locked the members of the committee in a room.
[8:51] SPEAKER_00: As she recalled, Well, we locked the door and we had a lot of talk.
[8:55] SPEAKER_00: I laid out a couple of bottles of something or other to cheer their lagging spirits.
[9:00] SPEAKER_00: Anyhow, we stayed in session until about 2 a.m.,
[9:04] SPEAKER_00: We then voted finally, having taken our solemn oath that this was the end.
[9:10] SPEAKER_00: We were never going to review it again.
[9:15] SPEAKER_00: By the time the bill came to a vote, it was hugely popular.
[9:18] SPEAKER_00: The vote was 371 to 33 in the House and 77 to 6 in the Senate.
[9:26] SPEAKER_00: When asked to describe the origins of the Social Security Act,
[9:30] SPEAKER_00: Perkins mused that its roots came from the very beginning of the nation.
[9:35] SPEAKER_00: When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America in 1835,
[9:40] SPEAKER_00: she noted,
[9:41] SPEAKER_00: he thought Americans were uniquely so generous, so kind, so charitably disposed.
[9:49] SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know anything about the times in which de Tocqueville visited America,
[9:53] SPEAKER_00: she said,
[9:54] SPEAKER_00: but I do know that at the time I came into the field of social work,
[9:58] SPEAKER_00: these feelings were real.
[10:01] SPEAKER_00: With the Social Security Act,
[10:03] SPEAKER_00: Perkins helped to write into our laws a longstanding political impulse in America
[10:09] SPEAKER_00: that stood in dramatic contrast to the 1920s philosophy of rugged individualism.
[10:15] SPEAKER_00: In a 1962 speech recalling the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins reflected...
[10:40] SPEAKER_00: Of course the Act had to be amended,
[10:43] SPEAKER_00: and has been amended,
[10:45] SPEAKER_00: and amended,
[10:46] SPEAKER_00: and amended,
[10:47] SPEAKER_00: and amended,
[10:49] SPEAKER_00: until it has now grown into a large and important project,
[10:54] SPEAKER_00: for which, by the way, I think the people of the United States are deeply thankful.
[11:01] SPEAKER_00: One thing I know,
[11:03] SPEAKER_00: Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today
[11:09] SPEAKER_00: that no politician,
[11:11] SPEAKER_00: no political party,
[11:13] SPEAKER_00: no political group could possibly destroy this act
[11:18] SPEAKER_00: and still maintain our democratic system.
[11:22] SPEAKER_00: It is safe.
[11:24] SPEAKER_00: It is safe forever forever.
[11:26] SPEAKER_00: And for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.

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