WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.980 Usually when you look at a modern skyscraper, 00:00:04.379 --> 00:00:07.120 there's this inherent expectation of like perfect 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:09.800 sterile planning. You look at the blueprints, 00:00:09.980 --> 00:00:11.919 you see the steel beams, the glass, the load 00:00:11.919 --> 00:00:14.439 -bearing walls, and the engineering just makes 00:00:14.439 --> 00:00:16.679 perfect binary sense. Yeah, you assume it was 00:00:16.679 --> 00:00:19.899 all designed in some quiet room under ideal conditions. 00:00:20.079 --> 00:00:21.980 Exactly, like the foundation was poured into 00:00:21.980 --> 00:00:24.399 completely stable ground. Which is, you know, 00:00:24.519 --> 00:00:26.879 a very comforting illusion. Right. We naturally 00:00:26.879 --> 00:00:28.859 want to believe that the structures supporting 00:00:28.859 --> 00:00:33.700 our lives were built with total clarity and a 00:00:33.700 --> 00:00:36.520 unified vision. But stepping into the world of 00:00:36.520 --> 00:00:39.039 American social policy, it reveals a completely 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:42.060 different reality. Oh, absolutely. I mean, the 00:00:42.060 --> 00:00:45.189 biggest Most consequential skyscraper in the 00:00:45.189 --> 00:00:48.170 American economic skyline wasn't built in a quiet 00:00:48.170 --> 00:00:50.750 room from a master blueprint. Not at all. It 00:00:50.750 --> 00:00:53.229 was constructed by architects aggressively fighting 00:00:53.229 --> 00:00:55.789 over the hammer, attempting to lay a permanent 00:00:55.789 --> 00:00:59.090 concrete foundation while actively fighting off 00:00:59.090 --> 00:01:01.590 a 500 -year flood. That is a perfect way to put 00:01:01.590 --> 00:01:03.630 it. They didn't have the luxury of perfecting 00:01:03.630 --> 00:01:06.209 the structural math, you know. They just needed 00:01:06.209 --> 00:01:08.689 to stop the entire country from drowning. Which 00:01:08.689 --> 00:01:11.950 perfectly encapsulates the environment of the 00:01:11.950 --> 00:01:14.569 1930s. Yeah. So welcome to today's Deep Drive. 00:01:15.269 --> 00:01:17.569 Our mission today is to explore how a profound 00:01:17.569 --> 00:01:20.730 national crisis forced the creation of a system 00:01:20.730 --> 00:01:23.530 that completely inverted the demographics of 00:01:23.530 --> 00:01:26.090 aging and poverty in America. We are pulling 00:01:26.090 --> 00:01:29.049 apart the historical and legislative blueprints 00:01:29.049 --> 00:01:32.609 of the Social Security Act of 1935 today. Right. 00:01:32.849 --> 00:01:34.909 Drawing from a really comprehensive breakdown 00:01:34.909 --> 00:01:37.430 of the act to see exactly how this machine was 00:01:37.430 --> 00:01:40.090 assembled. under the most immense pressure imaginable. 00:01:40.590 --> 00:01:42.790 And the baseline environment of the United States 00:01:42.790 --> 00:01:46.769 prior to 1935, it's vital to understanding the 00:01:46.769 --> 00:01:49.590 sheer radical nature of what was even being proposed 00:01:49.590 --> 00:01:51.950 here. Because the US was a major global outlier, 00:01:51.950 --> 00:01:53.810 right? Completely. Looking at the landscape of 00:01:53.810 --> 00:01:55.890 modern industrial nations at the time, the United 00:01:55.890 --> 00:01:57.790 States was one of the very few operating with 00:01:57.790 --> 00:02:00.209 absolutely no national social security system. 00:02:00.549 --> 00:02:03.150 Wow. So they were navigating the worst economic 00:02:03.150 --> 00:02:05.650 collapse in modern history completely without 00:02:05.650 --> 00:02:08.020 a net. To conceptualize this, you really have 00:02:08.020 --> 00:02:11.419 to strip away like a century of modern expectation. 00:02:11.439 --> 00:02:12.759 Right. You have to forget everything you know 00:02:12.759 --> 00:02:15.539 about retirement today. Retiring simply wasn't 00:02:15.539 --> 00:02:18.159 a realistic financial option for the vast majority 00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:20.680 of the workforce back then. Oh, you worked until 00:02:20.680 --> 00:02:23.379 your body physically gave out. And after that 00:02:23.379 --> 00:02:26.919 point, the statistical reality was just grim. 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:31.219 The elderly were categorically the poorest demographic 00:02:31.219 --> 00:02:34.069 in the entire country. Because. The options for 00:02:34.069 --> 00:02:36.830 governmental support were virtually nonexistent. 00:02:37.330 --> 00:02:39.030 I mean, the federal government had established 00:02:39.030 --> 00:02:41.849 a precedent of providing pensions to veterans, 00:02:42.370 --> 00:02:44.650 specifically managing the aftermath of the Civil 00:02:44.650 --> 00:02:47.250 War. But that was a highly restricted, heavily 00:02:47.250 --> 00:02:49.490 gated pool of federal money. Right, exactly. 00:02:49.669 --> 00:02:51.789 If you were a civilian who had simply aged out 00:02:51.789 --> 00:02:54.710 of the industrial workforce, there was zero federal 00:02:54.710 --> 00:02:56.960 infrastructure designed to catch you. And the 00:02:56.960 --> 00:02:58.620 state level was much better, right? It was just 00:02:58.620 --> 00:03:01.259 a patchwork of underfunded programs. Yeah, completely 00:03:01.259 --> 00:03:04.699 voluntary. The sources show that by 1931, only 00:03:04.699 --> 00:03:08.159 12 states had enacted any form of old age pension 00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:12.120 laws. Just 12. 12 out of 48. And characterizing 00:03:12.120 --> 00:03:14.800 them as robust safety nets would be a massive 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:16.659 overstatement. Because they were chronically 00:03:16.659 --> 00:03:19.150 underfunded. Right. Often leaving the actual 00:03:19.150 --> 00:03:21.449 payout decisions to individual counties that 00:03:21.449 --> 00:03:23.909 were frankly already bankrupt from the depression. 00:03:24.110 --> 00:03:27.169 The desperation was so visible. I read that 14 00:03:27.169 --> 00:03:29.650 separate state governors were actively pleading 00:03:29.650 --> 00:03:32.430 with their legislatures to enact pension measures 00:03:32.430 --> 00:03:35.189 that same year. Because the local municipalities 00:03:35.189 --> 00:03:37.750 simply could not bear the weight of the poverty 00:03:37.750 --> 00:03:40.810 anymore. So into this massive structural void 00:03:40.810 --> 00:03:45.569 steps this entirely unofficial figure. Dr. Francis 00:03:45.569 --> 00:03:49.180 Townsend. Yes, a physician who managed to galvanize 00:03:49.180 --> 00:03:51.939 an unprecedented level of grassroots support. 00:03:52.020 --> 00:03:54.120 He's like the ultimate influencer of his era, 00:03:54.360 --> 00:03:56.560 going completely viral before the internet even 00:03:56.560 --> 00:03:58.979 existed. It's true. He built a national movement 00:03:58.979 --> 00:04:01.580 around a shockingly simple premise. The Townsend 00:04:01.580 --> 00:04:04.479 Plan. Right. He proposed that the federal government 00:04:04.479 --> 00:04:07.879 issue direct payments of $200 a month to every 00:04:07.879 --> 00:04:10.939 single citizen over the age of 60. $200 a month 00:04:10.939 --> 00:04:14.349 in the mid -1930s was an astronomical sum. Like 00:04:14.349 --> 00:04:16.910 for an average family, let alone an elderly individual? 00:04:17.209 --> 00:04:20.410 Exactly. It represented a massive immediate injection 00:04:20.410 --> 00:04:22.910 of liquidity into the hands of a population that 00:04:22.910 --> 00:04:25.250 basically had nothing. But this wasn't pitched 00:04:25.250 --> 00:04:28.129 merely as a humanitarian effort, right? Which 00:04:28.129 --> 00:04:30.709 is a really crucial distinction here. No, not 00:04:30.709 --> 00:04:34.250 at all. Townsend packaged this as a macroeconomic 00:04:34.250 --> 00:04:37.610 engine. Right. The $200 payment came with a strict 00:04:37.610 --> 00:04:40.689 legal caveat. The recipient was required to spend 00:04:40.689 --> 00:04:43.689 the entire amount within 30 days. Which is wild. 00:04:43.930 --> 00:04:46.930 It fundamentally alters the pitch from a welfare 00:04:46.930 --> 00:04:51.829 program to a mandated economic stimulus. Exactly. 00:04:51.970 --> 00:04:54.470 Because in a depression, the core economic failure 00:04:54.470 --> 00:04:57.170 is the collapse of the velocity of money. People 00:04:57.170 --> 00:04:59.509 are terrified, so they hoard whatever capital 00:04:59.509 --> 00:05:01.930 they have. Right. And businesses see no demand, 00:05:01.990 --> 00:05:04.370 so they lay off workers. Which further terrifies 00:05:04.370 --> 00:05:06.699 the public. causing them to hoard even more. 00:05:06.819 --> 00:05:09.699 It's a massive deflationary spiral. And Townsend's 00:05:09.699 --> 00:05:12.199 framework basically weaponized the elderly to 00:05:12.199 --> 00:05:15.759 break that spiral. By legally mandating the expenditure 00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:19.360 of that $200, he was forcing a massive recurring 00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:22.660 velocity of money to artificially jumpstart consumer 00:05:22.660 --> 00:05:26.060 demand at the retail level. Yes. And the macroeconomic 00:05:26.060 --> 00:05:28.879 manipulation went even deeper regarding the labor 00:05:28.879 --> 00:05:31.300 supply. Right. The third prong of the plan. Exactly. 00:05:31.379 --> 00:05:34.730 It was a structural attack on unemployment. Providing 00:05:34.730 --> 00:05:37.149 older workers with an incredibly comfortable 00:05:37.149 --> 00:05:40.930 guaranteed pension, the plan incentivized a mass 00:05:40.930 --> 00:05:43.250 exodus from the workforce. It clears the board. 00:05:43.329 --> 00:05:45.610 Right. You buy out the older generation, they 00:05:45.610 --> 00:05:47.970 exit the factories and the offices, and suddenly 00:05:47.970 --> 00:05:51.149 you have this massive vacuum of available jobs 00:05:51.149 --> 00:05:53.670 for younger, desperate workers who are currently 00:05:53.670 --> 00:05:55.990 standing at breadlines. It is an aggressive, 00:05:56.230 --> 00:05:59.149 federally funded manipulation of the labor supply 00:05:59.149 --> 00:06:01.310 curve. OK, let's unpack this for a second though. 00:06:01.310 --> 00:06:03.329 Sure. If Congress was already debating things 00:06:03.329 --> 00:06:05.560 like this, the Dill Connery bill for state pensions. 00:06:05.879 --> 00:06:08.579 Why didn't FDR just green light what was already 00:06:08.579 --> 00:06:12.500 popular? Why delay? Because FDR was deeply ambivalent 00:06:12.500 --> 00:06:14.579 about how social welfare should fundamentally 00:06:14.579 --> 00:06:16.879 operate in America. You wanted a unified system, 00:06:16.879 --> 00:06:20.189 right? Yes. The historical sources note he possessed 00:06:20.189 --> 00:06:23.689 this incredibly grand vision. He openly utilized 00:06:23.689 --> 00:06:27.509 the phrase from cradle to grave to describe his 00:06:27.509 --> 00:06:30.370 ideal comprehensive umbrella of Social Security. 00:06:30.509 --> 00:06:32.689 Right. He wanted old age pensions, unemployment 00:06:32.689 --> 00:06:34.829 insurance, and even national health insurance 00:06:34.829 --> 00:06:37.819 unified under one single system. But he stalled 00:06:37.819 --> 00:06:40.839 the Dilconry bill because it relied on state 00:06:40.839 --> 00:06:43.839 level administration. He had this instinctive 00:06:43.839 --> 00:06:46.160 deference to state governments regarding local 00:06:46.160 --> 00:06:49.779 administration. But he knew that merely subsidizing 00:06:49.779 --> 00:06:52.980 the existing fractured state systems would never 00:06:52.980 --> 00:06:56.620 actually yield that unified cradle to grave architecture 00:06:56.620 --> 00:06:59.819 he wanted. Plus, didn't he have a really visceral 00:06:59.819 --> 00:07:02.259 aversion to the concept of the dole? Oh, absolutely. 00:07:02.660 --> 00:07:05.360 The dole being the prevailing term for unearned 00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:09.399 direct government. Right. FDR viewed direct permanent 00:07:09.399 --> 00:07:12.160 cash relief without a corresponding contribution 00:07:12.160 --> 00:07:15.139 as fundamentally corrosive to the American character. 00:07:15.279 --> 00:07:17.199 And politically unsustainable, too. Exactly. 00:07:17.279 --> 00:07:19.560 He executed the exact same stalling maneuver 00:07:19.560 --> 00:07:21.680 with unemployment insurance. Like with the Wagner 00:07:21.680 --> 00:07:25.420 -Lewis bill. Yes, the Wagner -Lewis bill in 1934. 00:07:26.180 --> 00:07:28.120 Congress had been debating unemployment relief 00:07:28.120 --> 00:07:31.040 since Hoover, and a clear majority favored the 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:34.959 bill. But FDR basically withheld the administration's 00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:37.389 backing. Right. Contemporary observers noted 00:07:37.389 --> 00:07:39.589 that had the president taken a forceful public 00:07:39.589 --> 00:07:42.110 stand, it would have easily passed. Instead, 00:07:42.250 --> 00:07:44.629 he let it wither. Because he was entirely unwilling 00:07:44.629 --> 00:07:47.089 to accept piecemeal legislation. Exactly. He 00:07:47.089 --> 00:07:49.350 deliberately allowed the societal pressure to 00:07:49.350 --> 00:07:51.610 build, basically absorbing the political damage 00:07:51.610 --> 00:07:54.589 of the delay, so his administration could design 00:07:54.589 --> 00:07:57.610 an encompassing self -funding machine. And to 00:07:57.610 --> 00:08:00.230 engineer that machine, he established the Committee 00:08:00.230 --> 00:08:03.610 on Economic Security in 1934. Right. And he placed 00:08:03.610 --> 00:08:06.529 Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins at the helm. 00:08:06.790 --> 00:08:09.050 The first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet. 00:08:09.389 --> 00:08:12.149 Yes. And she was handed an extraordinarily complex 00:08:12.149 --> 00:08:15.290 mandate. I mean, FDR tasked her committee with 00:08:15.290 --> 00:08:17.290 simultaneously developing an old age pension 00:08:17.290 --> 00:08:20.129 program, an unemployment insurance system and 00:08:20.129 --> 00:08:22.360 a national health insurance program. all designed 00:08:22.360 --> 00:08:25.000 to bypass his fear of the dole and somehow survive 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:27.560 conservative legal challenges. But that ambition 00:08:27.560 --> 00:08:29.720 hit a wall pretty fast, didn't it? Yeah. Oh, 00:08:29.740 --> 00:08:32.679 immediately. The national health insurance component 00:08:32.679 --> 00:08:35.659 faced incredibly well organized opposition from 00:08:35.659 --> 00:08:38.059 the African Medical Association. Because the 00:08:38.059 --> 00:08:41.440 AMA viewed federal health insurance as a direct 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:43.879 threat to the private medical market. Exactly. 00:08:43.960 --> 00:08:46.659 So the administration had to perform a really 00:08:46.659 --> 00:08:49.700 rapid political calculus. They realized a scorched 00:08:49.700 --> 00:08:52.200 earth lobbying war with the doctors would probably 00:08:52.200 --> 00:08:54.679 destroy the entire package in Congress. Right. 00:08:54.899 --> 00:08:57.200 So the health insurance provision was completely 00:08:57.200 --> 00:08:59.940 excised to protect the survival of the pension 00:08:59.940 --> 00:09:02.059 and unemployment pillars? Even without health 00:09:02.059 --> 00:09:04.639 insurance, though, the scope was just unprecedented. 00:09:04.799 --> 00:09:08.600 Oh, absolutely. The source is, quote, FDR explicitly 00:09:08.600 --> 00:09:11.779 outlining this vision, he said. I see no reason 00:09:11.779 --> 00:09:14.559 why every child from the day he is born shouldn't 00:09:14.559 --> 00:09:16.820 be a member of the Social Security system. From 00:09:16.820 --> 00:09:18.360 the cradle to the grave, they ought to be in 00:09:18.360 --> 00:09:21.120 a social insurance system. Exactly. But translating 00:09:21.120 --> 00:09:23.379 that rhetoric into functional policy required 00:09:23.379 --> 00:09:25.879 a funding mechanism that avoided the dole. Which 00:09:25.879 --> 00:09:28.649 brings us to the payroll tax. the nuts and bolts 00:09:28.649 --> 00:09:31.970 of the act. Yes. The mechanism we now know as 00:09:31.970 --> 00:09:34.769 FICA, the Federal Insurance Contributions Act. 00:09:35.009 --> 00:09:37.450 This fundamentally altered the relationship between 00:09:37.450 --> 00:09:40.190 the citizen and the state. Because it dictated 00:09:40.190 --> 00:09:42.389 that the system would not be funded by general 00:09:42.389 --> 00:09:45.850 revenue or income taxes, but by a specific tax 00:09:45.850 --> 00:09:50.649 levied directly on wages. And split evenly between 00:09:50.649 --> 00:09:53.669 the employer and the employee. Right. It's just 00:09:53.669 --> 00:09:57.000 a brilliant piece of psychological and political 00:09:57.000 --> 00:09:58.700 engineering when you think about it. It really 00:09:58.700 --> 00:10:01.840 is. By extracting the funds directly from the 00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:04.899 worker's paycheck, they redefined the benefit. 00:10:05.299 --> 00:10:07.379 It was no longer a government handout. It was 00:10:07.379 --> 00:10:10.179 an earned insurance annuity. Yes. The worker 00:10:10.179 --> 00:10:12.600 was paying premiums during their productive years 00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:15.659 to guarantee a payout in their retirement. Which 00:10:15.659 --> 00:10:18.460 makes it politically bulletproof. If a program 00:10:18.460 --> 00:10:21.429 is framed as welfare, it's constantly vulnerable 00:10:21.429 --> 00:10:23.769 to budget cuts. But if you convince the public 00:10:23.769 --> 00:10:26.210 that the government is merely holding their money 00:10:26.210 --> 00:10:29.090 in a personalized account, then reducing that 00:10:29.090 --> 00:10:31.230 benefit becomes an act of political self -destruction 00:10:31.230 --> 00:10:34.490 for any politician. Exactly. However, relying 00:10:34.490 --> 00:10:38.110 strictly on a payroll tax carried profound economic 00:10:38.110 --> 00:10:40.210 consequences. Because it's a regressive tax. 00:10:40.529 --> 00:10:43.519 Yes. The sources point out that because FICA 00:10:43.519 --> 00:10:46.059 is a flat percentage taken only from earned wages 00:10:46.059 --> 00:10:49.580 up to a certain cap, it extracts a much larger 00:10:49.580 --> 00:10:52.580 percentage of effective total income from a low 00:10:52.580 --> 00:10:55.000 -wage worker. Right, compared to a high -wealth 00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:57.299 individual whose income might be coming from 00:10:57.299 --> 00:10:59.980 investments or capital gains. Which were completely 00:10:59.980 --> 00:11:02.500 untouched by the Social Security tax. And because 00:11:02.500 --> 00:11:04.919 the eventual retirement benefit was tied to the 00:11:04.919 --> 00:11:07.759 total amount you paid in, the architecture actually 00:11:07.759 --> 00:11:09.980 prevented any meaningful wealth redistribution. 00:11:10.409 --> 00:11:13.309 If you spent your life working low wage jobs, 00:11:13.769 --> 00:11:15.769 you paid a painful percentage of your income 00:11:15.769 --> 00:11:18.629 into the system, and your resulting benefit was 00:11:18.629 --> 00:11:21.539 correspondingly small. while a higher earner 00:11:21.539 --> 00:11:24.840 paid more total dollars in and received a significantly 00:11:24.840 --> 00:11:27.220 larger monthly benefit upon retirement. Which 00:11:27.220 --> 00:11:29.379 is a critical distinction when you compare the 00:11:29.379 --> 00:11:31.519 American system to the social welfare frameworks 00:11:31.519 --> 00:11:33.279 in Western Europe at the time. Because those 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:35.000 were designed to redistribute wealth, right? 00:11:35.320 --> 00:11:37.659 Right, taxing the wealthy to raise the baseline 00:11:37.659 --> 00:11:40.720 standard of living for the poor. But the 1935 00:11:40.720 --> 00:11:43.899 Social Security Act was fundamentally a highly 00:11:43.899 --> 00:11:46.639 conservative financial mechanism. It did not 00:11:46.639 --> 00:11:48.519 attempt to level the economic playing field. 00:11:48.620 --> 00:11:50.950 No, it really didn't. Yet, just the fact that 00:11:50.950 --> 00:11:52.990 the federal government was assuming permanent 00:11:52.990 --> 00:11:56.110 responsibility for the aged and unemployed was 00:11:56.110 --> 00:11:59.110 a tectonic shift. Oh, without a doubt. But getting 00:11:59.110 --> 00:12:02.029 this through Congress in August of 1935 required 00:12:02.029 --> 00:12:04.529 massive compromises. And the cost of that compromise 00:12:04.529 --> 00:12:07.110 was paid entirely by marginalized workers. Yeah. 00:12:07.210 --> 00:12:08.909 Let's talk about the exclusions, because the 00:12:08.909 --> 00:12:11.620 scope of who got left out is staggering. The 00:12:11.620 --> 00:12:14.539 reality of passing a bill of this magnitude meant 00:12:14.539 --> 00:12:17.200 that massive critical sectors of the workforce 00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:19.740 were intentionally severed from that cradle to 00:12:19.740 --> 00:12:22.720 grave promise. The sources detail the specific 00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:26.399 categories. Agricultural labor, domestic service, 00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:29.580 and government employees were entirely excluded. 00:12:29.940 --> 00:12:32.320 Along with massive sections of the professional 00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:35.019 public sector. Wait, like who? Many teachers, 00:12:35.159 --> 00:12:38.379 nurses, hospital employees, librarians, and social 00:12:38.379 --> 00:12:41.049 workers. That's crazy to think about. Those are 00:12:41.049 --> 00:12:44.389 the backbone of a functioning society. Why exclude 00:12:44.389 --> 00:12:47.090 them? Well, the justifications varied. It was 00:12:47.090 --> 00:12:50.269 a blend of actuarial anxiety and hardline political 00:12:50.269 --> 00:12:53.090 horse trading. The architects preferred targeting 00:12:53.090 --> 00:12:55.169 traditional industrial and corporate employment 00:12:55.169 --> 00:12:57.889 because those sectors had centralized payrolls. 00:12:57.929 --> 00:13:00.850 Oh, making the new FICA tax easier to track and 00:13:00.850 --> 00:13:03.799 collect. Right. Administratively, the government 00:13:03.799 --> 00:13:06.799 felt it lacked the infrastructure to track the 00:13:06.799 --> 00:13:09.980 irregular, often cash -based wages of transient 00:13:09.980 --> 00:13:12.259 farm workers or domestic servants. And public 00:13:12.259 --> 00:13:15.019 employees like teachers. They were excluded due 00:13:15.019 --> 00:13:17.840 to incredibly thorny constitutional questions 00:13:17.840 --> 00:13:20.500 about the federal government's authority to levy 00:13:20.500 --> 00:13:23.500 taxes directly against state and local government 00:13:23.500 --> 00:13:25.960 entities. Okay, that makes sense from an administrative 00:13:25.960 --> 00:13:29.029 standpoint. But the agricultural and domestic 00:13:29.029 --> 00:13:31.230 exclusion wasn't just administrative, was it? 00:13:31.409 --> 00:13:33.769 No, not at all. It was a non -negotiable demand 00:13:33.769 --> 00:13:36.070 from the Southern Democratic Voting Bloc. Right. 00:13:36.210 --> 00:13:39.190 To pass the Senate, FDR needed the Southern senators. 00:13:39.710 --> 00:13:42.049 And they were deeply invested in maintaining 00:13:42.049 --> 00:13:45.110 the existing economic hierarchy of the agricultural 00:13:45.110 --> 00:13:48.250 South. Which relied on a vast pool of cheap, 00:13:48.710 --> 00:13:51.549 disenfranchised, predominantly minority labor. 00:13:51.789 --> 00:13:54.850 Exactly. Subjecting agricultural and domestic 00:13:54.850 --> 00:13:57.789 labor to federal payroll taxes would have required 00:13:57.789 --> 00:14:00.710 the federal government to actively track and 00:14:00.710 --> 00:14:03.210 regulate the wages being paid to black workers 00:14:03.210 --> 00:14:05.850 in the Jim Crow South. And the southern politicians 00:14:05.850 --> 00:14:08.629 recognized that federal oversight would disrupt 00:14:08.629 --> 00:14:11.409 their localized economic control. So they demanded 00:14:11.409 --> 00:14:14.090 those categories be stripped from the bill entirely. 00:14:14.309 --> 00:14:16.809 And the resulting racial impact was just devastating. 00:14:17.049 --> 00:14:20.690 The statistics from the sources are brutal. Because 00:14:20.690 --> 00:14:23.169 agricultural and domestic work were the primary 00:14:23.169 --> 00:14:25.529 avenues of employment available to minorities 00:14:25.529 --> 00:14:29.529 at the time, 65 % of the entire African -American 00:14:29.529 --> 00:14:32.169 workforce was legally excluded from the initial 00:14:32.169 --> 00:14:35.909 program. 65%. Nearly two -thirds of black workers 00:14:35.909 --> 00:14:39.710 were locked out. It also excluded 27 % of white 00:14:39.710 --> 00:14:41.950 workers, which highlights the massive gaps in 00:14:41.950 --> 00:14:44.269 general. Right. But the disproportionate targeting 00:14:44.269 --> 00:14:47.129 of the minority workforce had profound generational 00:14:47.129 --> 00:14:49.350 consequences. Because Social Security wasn't 00:14:49.350 --> 00:14:51.710 just about preventing starvation. It was the 00:14:51.710 --> 00:14:53.809 foundational wealth building tool of the mid 00:14:53.809 --> 00:14:56.370 20th century. Exactly. If you were included, 00:14:56.470 --> 00:14:59.590 your family had a concrete economic floor. You 00:14:59.590 --> 00:15:01.730 could allocate your remaining income differently, 00:15:02.450 --> 00:15:05.230 take slight economic risks, plan for generational 00:15:05.230 --> 00:15:07.990 stability. But if you were in the excluded 65 00:15:07.990 --> 00:15:10.950 percent, you were entirely exposed. You had to 00:15:10.950 --> 00:15:14.149 hoard every penny for survival. Meaning generations 00:15:14.149 --> 00:15:17.379 of marginalized workers missed out on two decades 00:15:17.379 --> 00:15:20.480 of compounding systemic security before the coverage 00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:23.120 gaps were meaningfully addressed. Right. And, 00:15:23.220 --> 00:15:25.240 you know, even with all those compromises, the 00:15:25.240 --> 00:15:27.659 act was still a massive target for legal challenges. 00:15:27.840 --> 00:15:30.019 Oh, yes. Surviving Congress was just phase one. 00:15:30.419 --> 00:15:32.320 They immediately had to prepare for a brutal 00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:35.039 war in the Supreme Court. To defend the fundamental 00:15:35.039 --> 00:15:37.440 constitutionality of the whole system. Because 00:15:37.440 --> 00:15:39.460 Social Security isn't just one thing, right? 00:15:39.779 --> 00:15:42.879 It's a massive sprawling operating system of 00:15:42.879 --> 00:15:45.860 social policy, organized into discrete titles. 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:48.279 Exactly. It wasn't just a single pension plan. 00:15:48.399 --> 00:15:50.700 It was a framework designed to run a dozen different 00:15:50.700 --> 00:15:53.299 welfare applications simultaneously. Like title 00:15:53.299 --> 00:15:55.840 established direct relief for the age who are 00:15:55.840 --> 00:15:58.720 already too old to pay into the system. And title 00:15:58.720 --> 00:16:01.919 two was the core engine, the actual federal treasury 00:16:01.919 --> 00:16:04.799 account for the future old age insurance benefits. 00:16:05.019 --> 00:16:08.129 Then title three was unemployment. Title IV was 00:16:08.129 --> 00:16:10.529 aid to families with dependent children. Basically 00:16:10.529 --> 00:16:13.429 supporting single mothers. Right. Title V was 00:16:13.429 --> 00:16:16.649 maternal and child welfare. Title VI expanded 00:16:16.649 --> 00:16:19.269 public health services. Title VII established 00:16:19.269 --> 00:16:21.870 the Social Security Board. And Titles VIII and 00:16:21.870 --> 00:16:25.370 IX were the financial engines, the FICA tax and 00:16:25.370 --> 00:16:28.090 the unemployment excise tax. And finally, Title 00:16:28.090 --> 00:16:30.690 X established support for the blind. It's basically 00:16:30.690 --> 00:16:33.570 the complete blueprint for a modern social welfare 00:16:33.570 --> 00:16:36.399 state. It is, but in the legal environment of 00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:39.200 the 1930s, asserting that the federal government 00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:42.179 possessed the constitutional authority to unilaterally 00:16:42.179 --> 00:16:45.259 tax local employers and manage a centralized 00:16:45.259 --> 00:16:48.240 national retirement fund. That was deeply controversial. 00:16:48.559 --> 00:16:51.519 Very. Conservative legal scholars argued it was 00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:53.879 a flagrant violation of states' rights. Which 00:16:53.879 --> 00:16:57.480 triggered the 1937 Supreme Court showdown. Two 00:16:57.480 --> 00:16:59.559 critical cases reached the court at the same 00:16:59.559 --> 00:17:02.330 time. Stuart Machine Company Davis and Helvering 00:17:02.330 --> 00:17:04.670 V. Davis. And a ruling against the administration 00:17:04.670 --> 00:17:06.970 in either would have dismantled the entire New 00:17:06.970 --> 00:17:09.269 Deal's crowning achievement. Let's look at Stuart 00:17:09.269 --> 00:17:12.779 first. The core argument there focused on the 00:17:12.779 --> 00:17:15.519 unemployment tax in Title IX. The administration 00:17:15.519 --> 00:17:17.500 had designed a pretty coercive system there, 00:17:17.500 --> 00:17:20.099 right? Yes. The federal government levied a substantial 00:17:20.099 --> 00:17:23.619 tax on employers, but offered a massive 90 % 00:17:23.619 --> 00:17:26.400 credit on that tax if the employer was already 00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:28.799 paying into a state -level unemployment fund 00:17:28.799 --> 00:17:31.359 that met federal standards. Which conservative 00:17:31.359 --> 00:17:33.779 justices argued was unconstitutional coercion. 00:17:34.039 --> 00:17:37.549 Right. Justices Butler, McReynolds and Sutherland 00:17:37.549 --> 00:17:39.990 argued the federal government was using punitive 00:17:39.990 --> 00:17:43.210 tax policy to bully sovereign states into passing 00:17:43.210 --> 00:17:46.549 specific legislation. But the Supreme Court upheld 00:17:46.549 --> 00:17:50.049 it in a razor thin 5 -4 decision. They leaned 00:17:50.049 --> 00:17:52.670 heavily on the concept of the general welfare, 00:17:53.269 --> 00:17:55.589 basically ruling that the depression was so extreme 00:17:55.589 --> 00:17:58.170 that federal intervention wasn't coercion, but 00:17:58.170 --> 00:18:00.549 a necessary promotion of the nation's general 00:18:00.549 --> 00:18:03.089 welfare. Then decided on the exact same day. 00:18:03.240 --> 00:18:06.019 was Hilvering v. Davis, which was arguably even 00:18:06.019 --> 00:18:08.160 more consequential because it directly challenged 00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:10.220 the constitutionality of the old age pension 00:18:10.220 --> 00:18:12.680 payroll tax, the absolute core of the program. 00:18:12.680 --> 00:18:16.279 And the legal defense here highlights this fascinating 00:18:16.279 --> 00:18:18.779 contradiction between how the policy was sold 00:18:18.779 --> 00:18:21.119 to the public and how it was defended in court. 00:18:21.400 --> 00:18:24.440 It's quite the paradox. Politically, FDR explicitly 00:18:24.440 --> 00:18:26.839 pitched FICA as a personal insurance premium. 00:18:27.339 --> 00:18:29.559 You pay your money into your account. We pay 00:18:29.559 --> 00:18:33.470 it back. But legally. They knew that tying a 00:18:33.470 --> 00:18:37.009 specific federal tax to a specific benefit was 00:18:37.009 --> 00:18:40.250 constitutionally precarious. Exactly. So to survive 00:18:40.250 --> 00:18:43.089 the Supreme Court, the government's lawyers executed 00:18:43.089 --> 00:18:46.309 this brilliant, highly technical legal maneuver. 00:18:46.599 --> 00:18:49.000 What do they argue? They argued that the FICA 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:51.700 tax in Title 8 and the old age benefits in Title 00:18:51.700 --> 00:18:54.700 2 were legally completely unrelated. Wait, seriously? 00:18:54.940 --> 00:18:57.319 Yes. They asserted the payroll tax was merely 00:18:57.319 --> 00:19:00.160 a standard exercise of Congress's broad constitutional 00:19:00.160 --> 00:19:03.559 power to levy general taxes. So the revenue generated 00:19:03.559 --> 00:19:06.019 wasn't legally earmarked for pensions. It just 00:19:06.019 --> 00:19:08.339 flowed into the general U .S. Treasury. Exactly. 00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:10.980 Just like an alcohol or income tax. And the fact 00:19:10.980 --> 00:19:13.460 that the tax perfectly matched the benefits paid 00:19:13.460 --> 00:19:16.740 out. was framed as what a legislative coincidence? 00:19:17.279 --> 00:19:20.079 Essentially, yes. And the court accepted this 00:19:20.079 --> 00:19:23.140 rationale, ruling that the payroll tax was constitutional 00:19:23.140 --> 00:19:25.980 because the funds were not legally sequestered. 00:19:26.220 --> 00:19:30.440 That is wild. But winning those two cases permanently 00:19:30.440 --> 00:19:33.019 embedded the act into the economic bedrock of 00:19:33.019 --> 00:19:35.619 the country. Yes, it was no longer an experimental 00:19:35.619 --> 00:19:38.180 emergency measure. And because the core architecture 00:19:38.180 --> 00:19:41.019 was secured, Congress could begin the process 00:19:41.019 --> 00:19:43.069 of upgrading the operating system. Which brings 00:19:43.069 --> 00:19:45.930 us to the 1939 amendments, a massive paradigm 00:19:45.930 --> 00:19:48.450 shift just four years after the original act. 00:19:48.549 --> 00:19:50.509 Right, because the Supreme Court ruled the tax 00:19:50.509 --> 00:19:53.210 and the benefit weren't legally connected, Congress 00:19:53.210 --> 00:19:55.650 had the flexibility to alter how the money was 00:19:55.650 --> 00:19:59.089 dispersed. The original 1935 act was highly individualistic. 00:19:59.349 --> 00:20:01.690 It functioned similarly to a modern individual 00:20:01.690 --> 00:20:03.990 retirement account. Strictly paying only the 00:20:03.990 --> 00:20:07.380 insured worker. But the 1939 amendments obliterated 00:20:07.380 --> 00:20:09.819 that framework, shifting the entire system toward 00:20:09.819 --> 00:20:12.660 a broader, family -centric social safety net. 00:20:12.960 --> 00:20:15.380 By creating dependent benefits and survivor benefits. 00:20:15.500 --> 00:20:17.940 Exactly. Now if a worker retired, their spouse 00:20:17.940 --> 00:20:20.740 and minor children also became eligible for supplemental 00:20:20.740 --> 00:20:23.420 monthly payments. Regardless of whether the spouse 00:20:23.420 --> 00:20:26.059 had ever formally worked or paid into the FICA 00:20:26.059 --> 00:20:28.839 system. And the survivor benefits were even more 00:20:28.839 --> 00:20:31.200 crucial for the working class. Because prior 00:20:31.200 --> 00:20:35.029 to 1939, If a male breadwinner died prematurely, 00:20:35.450 --> 00:20:37.730 his accumulated contributions were basically 00:20:37.730 --> 00:20:39.710 meaningless to his family. They were instantly 00:20:39.710 --> 00:20:42.569 plunged into severe poverty, but the new amendments 00:20:42.569 --> 00:20:45.230 established regular monthly payments for surviving 00:20:45.230 --> 00:20:48.569 family members. Widows, widowed mothers caring 00:20:48.569 --> 00:20:51.750 for children, children under 16, and even dependent 00:20:51.750 --> 00:20:54.150 parents. It transformed Social Security from 00:20:54.150 --> 00:20:57.190 a simple retirement annuity into a comprehensive 00:20:57.190 --> 00:20:59.849 national life insurance policy. Then we move 00:20:59.849 --> 00:21:02.710 into the post -war era. The boom of the 1950s. 00:21:02.789 --> 00:21:05.569 Where the upgrades accelerated. In 1950, they 00:21:05.569 --> 00:21:08.009 introduced the first major increase in benefit 00:21:08.009 --> 00:21:10.950 payouts to combat post -war inflation. Implementing 00:21:10.950 --> 00:21:13.130 the cost of living adjustment or COA. Right. 00:21:13.470 --> 00:21:16.369 But the 1954 amendments represent a structural 00:21:16.369 --> 00:21:18.930 overhaul of immense proportions. Because they 00:21:18.930 --> 00:21:21.150 finally moved to close the massive coverage gaps 00:21:21.150 --> 00:21:24.529 left in 1935. Exactly. They extended mandatory 00:21:24.529 --> 00:21:27.130 coverage to approximately 10 million additional 00:21:27.130 --> 00:21:29.660 people. bringing in self -employed farmers and 00:21:29.660 --> 00:21:32.079 professionals, and allowing state and local government 00:21:32.079 --> 00:21:35.380 employees to join voluntarily. This finally began 00:21:35.380 --> 00:21:37.720 to integrate the agricultural sector into the 00:21:37.720 --> 00:21:40.859 national safety net. To fund that, they increased 00:21:40.859 --> 00:21:43.640 the maximum annual earnings base subject to FICA. 00:21:43.819 --> 00:21:48.099 Yes, from $3 ,600 to $4 ,200, along with scheduled 00:21:48.099 --> 00:21:51.900 tax rate increases. But the 1954 amendments also 00:21:51.900 --> 00:21:54.359 introduced these specific mathematical adjustments 00:21:54.359 --> 00:21:57.839 that really humanized the rigid formulas. The 00:21:57.839 --> 00:22:00.400 dropout provision. It's a master class in empathetic 00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:02.599 policy design. Right, because under the original 00:22:02.599 --> 00:22:05.519 rules, your benefit was calculated on your strict 00:22:05.519 --> 00:22:08.240 average earnings over your entire working life. 00:22:08.299 --> 00:22:11.279 Which severely punished any deviation from continuous 00:22:11.279 --> 00:22:13.200 employment. If you were sick for three years, 00:22:13.099 --> 00:22:15.799 those zero income years drag down your lifetime 00:22:15.799 --> 00:22:17.880 average. Permanently crippling your retirement 00:22:17.880 --> 00:22:20.440 benefit. But the dropout provision allowed workers 00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:23.240 to legally exclude up to five years of their 00:22:23.240 --> 00:22:25.740 lowest or zero earnings from the calculation. 00:22:26.059 --> 00:22:28.539 Acknowledging that human lives are messy. and 00:22:28.539 --> 00:22:30.519 preventing the math from permanently punishing 00:22:30.519 --> 00:22:32.880 temporary hardship. They compounded that with 00:22:32.880 --> 00:22:35.440 the disability freeze in the same package. Which 00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:38.299 protected workers who suffered catastrophic long 00:22:38.299 --> 00:22:40.900 -term medical issues. If you had a medical impairment 00:22:40.900 --> 00:22:42.599 that prevented you from working for at least 00:22:42.599 --> 00:22:45.000 six months, your earnings record was frozen. 00:22:45.339 --> 00:22:47.420 So the zero -income years wouldn't count against 00:22:47.420 --> 00:22:49.740 you? Right. Preserving your eventual retirement 00:22:49.740 --> 00:22:51.980 payout as if the disability had never occurred? 00:22:52.420 --> 00:22:54.220 It's just a continuous process of patching the 00:22:54.220 --> 00:22:57.950 holes. And this iterative process really culminated 00:22:57.950 --> 00:23:02.589 in 1965. Yes. The 1965 amendments represented 00:23:02.589 --> 00:23:06.029 the construction of an entirely new massive wing 00:23:06.029 --> 00:23:09.309 of the skyscraper. Arguably the second most consequential 00:23:09.309 --> 00:23:11.430 expansion of the safety net in American history. 00:23:11.569 --> 00:23:14.109 Because they grafted two entirely new titles 00:23:14.109 --> 00:23:16.609 onto the existing architecture, Title VIII and 00:23:16.609 --> 00:23:19.630 Title XIX. By utilizing that legally bulletproof 00:23:19.630 --> 00:23:23.549 framework, LBJ basically sneaked Francis Perkins' 00:23:23.829 --> 00:23:27.470 original defeated 1935 dream of national health 00:23:27.470 --> 00:23:29.910 care through the back door. Exactly. Title VIII 00:23:29.910 --> 00:23:32.230 established Medicare, providing guaranteed health 00:23:32.230 --> 00:23:34.670 insurance for the aged and disabled. Directly 00:23:34.670 --> 00:23:36.690 addressing the fact that medical costs were a 00:23:36.690 --> 00:23:39.309 primary driver of elderly poverty. And Title 00:23:39.309 --> 00:23:42.289 IX established Medicaid, providing federal grants 00:23:42.289 --> 00:23:44.289 to states for low -income medical assistance 00:23:44.289 --> 00:23:47.470 across all age brackets. Completing the cradle 00:23:47.470 --> 00:23:50.069 to grave vision. Which leads us to the ultimate 00:23:50.069 --> 00:23:53.109 analysis of the source material. measuring the 00:23:53.109 --> 00:23:56.529 final, tangible result of this 90 -year legislative 00:23:56.529 --> 00:23:58.950 project. Yeah, let's look at the measurable impact. 00:23:59.390 --> 00:24:01.390 Because the sources provide a comparative data 00:24:01.390 --> 00:24:04.450 set that reveals a demographic inversion so complete 00:24:04.450 --> 00:24:07.230 it almost defies comprehension. The legislation 00:24:07.230 --> 00:24:10.150 literally flipped the script on poverty. If you 00:24:10.150 --> 00:24:12.950 look at the 1950s, before the massive expansions 00:24:12.950 --> 00:24:14.869 and healthcare additions really took effect, 00:24:15.650 --> 00:24:18.539 the baseline reality was stark. People over the 00:24:18.539 --> 00:24:20.819 age of 65 statistically experience the highest 00:24:20.819 --> 00:24:23.460 poverty rate of any age group in the United States. 00:24:23.779 --> 00:24:26.059 Extreme poverty among the elderly was an accepted, 00:24:26.500 --> 00:24:28.880 visible norm. And the concentration of national 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:31.660 wealth reflected that. In the 1950s, the largest 00:24:31.660 --> 00:24:34.319 percentage of the nation's total wealth was heavily 00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:36.440 concentrated in the hands of Americans under 00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:39.119 the age of 35. The young held the capital, the 00:24:39.119 --> 00:24:41.660 old held the poverty. Fast forward to the data 00:24:41.660 --> 00:24:44.240 from the 2010s provided in the sources, and we 00:24:44.240 --> 00:24:46.900 observe a complete dramatic reversal. Right. 00:24:46.920 --> 00:24:49.200 By 2010, the largest percentage of national wealth 00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:51.500 is firmly consolidated in the hands of Americans 00:24:51.500 --> 00:24:54.900 aged 55 to 75. Conversely, Americans under the 00:24:54.900 --> 00:24:57.599 age of 45 are statistically among the poorest 00:24:57.599 --> 00:24:59.680 demographics in the country. The system worked 00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:01.819 exactly as the architects eventually designed 00:25:01.819 --> 00:25:04.980 it to. It did. By forcibly extracting capital 00:25:04.980 --> 00:25:07.240 from the working age population through the FICA 00:25:07.240 --> 00:25:10.630 tax and redirecting it to the elder... The Social 00:25:10.630 --> 00:25:13.490 Security Act methodically moved the concentration 00:25:13.490 --> 00:25:15.650 of wealth from one end of the human lifespan 00:25:15.650 --> 00:25:18.579 to the other. Elderly poverty, once an unavoidable 00:25:18.579 --> 00:25:21.319 epidemic, has been reduced to a statistical rarity. 00:25:21.480 --> 00:25:23.440 And the sheer financial scale of the machine 00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:26.299 required to achieve that is staggering. In 1940, 00:25:26.299 --> 00:25:28.619 the first year regular monthly benefits were 00:25:28.619 --> 00:25:32.240 issued, payouts amounted to $35 million. Two 00:25:32.240 --> 00:25:35.259 decades later, in 1960, it was $11 .2 billion. 00:25:35.319 --> 00:25:39.500 By 1990, $247 .8 billion. And the sources note 00:25:39.500 --> 00:25:41.859 that in 2009, the Social Security Administration 00:25:41.859 --> 00:25:45.039 distributed approximately $650 billion to nearly 00:25:45.039 --> 00:25:47.849 $51 billion. million Americans. It is a financial 00:25:47.849 --> 00:25:50.769 apparatus of almost incomprehensible magnitude. 00:25:51.049 --> 00:25:53.950 Touching the economic reality of virtually every 00:25:53.950 --> 00:25:56.349 single family in the nation. Which is exactly 00:25:56.349 --> 00:25:59.049 why biographer Kenneth S. Davis categorized it 00:25:59.049 --> 00:26:02.049 as the most important single piece of social 00:26:02.049 --> 00:26:04.789 legislation in the entirety of American history. 00:26:05.289 --> 00:26:08.950 The impact is undeniable, but the legacy remains 00:26:08.950 --> 00:26:12.509 deeply complex. Very complex. We've traced how 00:26:12.509 --> 00:26:15.329 FDR and Francis Perkins channeled the panic of 00:26:15.329 --> 00:26:18.190 the Great Depression to engineer this highly 00:26:18.190 --> 00:26:20.609 structured bureaucracy. How government lawyers 00:26:20.609 --> 00:26:22.690 maneuvered to survive the Supreme Court. How 00:26:22.690 --> 00:26:25.150 the formulas were rewritten to protect families 00:26:25.150 --> 00:26:27.529 and accommodate disability. But the blueprints 00:26:27.529 --> 00:26:30.190 also permanently bear the scars of the environment 00:26:30.190 --> 00:26:32.910 in which they were drawn. Yes, the system achieved 00:26:32.910 --> 00:26:35.869 massive success, but the deliberate exclusion 00:26:35.869 --> 00:26:38.549 of minority and agricultural workers from the 00:26:38.549 --> 00:26:41.700 foundational decades. severely stunted the accumulation 00:26:41.700 --> 00:26:44.460 of generational wealth for millions. Creating 00:26:44.460 --> 00:26:46.640 economic ripples that are still totally visible 00:26:46.640 --> 00:26:48.980 today. The architecture wasn't perfect, but it 00:26:48.980 --> 00:26:51.279 fundamentally altered the baseline of American 00:26:51.279 --> 00:26:55.539 survival. So, to you the listener, the next time 00:26:55.539 --> 00:26:58.200 you look at your pay stub and register that FICA 00:26:58.200 --> 00:27:01.799 deduction, that specific line item silently reducing 00:27:01.799 --> 00:27:04.670 your take -home pay, Recognize that you aren't 00:27:04.670 --> 00:27:06.890 merely looking at a standard tax. You are looking 00:27:06.890 --> 00:27:10.309 at a direct unbroken financial tether. You are 00:27:10.309 --> 00:27:13.690 actively participating in a continuous 90 -year 00:27:13.690 --> 00:27:16.609 economic mechanism connecting your current labor 00:27:16.609 --> 00:27:18.950 directly to the panic of the Great Depression, 00:27:19.430 --> 00:27:22.690 to Francis Perkins, and to a colossal machine, 00:27:23.190 --> 00:27:25.250 ridiculously designed to ensure that growing 00:27:25.250 --> 00:27:27.789 old in America doesn't automatically mean growing 00:27:27.789 --> 00:27:31.279 poor. Which leaves us with a profound structural 00:27:31.279 --> 00:27:33.220 question regarding the current state of that 00:27:33.220 --> 00:27:35.579 demographic inversion. Right. We analyzed the 00:27:35.579 --> 00:27:37.819 data showing how the act systematically extracted 00:27:37.819 --> 00:27:39.619 wealth from the young and transferred it to the 00:27:39.619 --> 00:27:42.339 elderly, completely reversing the poverty dynamics. 00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:44.799 It decisively solved the specific crisis it was 00:27:44.799 --> 00:27:47.160 originally built for. But analyzing that exact 00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:50.380 same modern data with the under 45 demographic 00:27:50.380 --> 00:27:52.599 now statistically positioned among the poorest. 00:27:52.740 --> 00:27:55.339 Has the machine perhaps worked too well? Exactly. 00:27:55.880 --> 00:27:58.059 If Frances Perkins were resurrected to chair 00:27:58.059 --> 00:28:01.000 a new Committee on Economic Security today serving 00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:03.619 a landscape where the elderly hold the vast majority 00:28:03.619 --> 00:28:05.700 of the capital and the young are economically 00:28:05.700 --> 00:28:08.980 drowning. What demographic would she be actively 00:28:08.980 --> 00:28:11.519 trying to save now? Are we just standing in the 00:28:11.519 --> 00:28:13.779 middle of a new hurricane arguing over a different 00:28:13.779 --> 00:28:16.799 set of blueprints? It is a fascinating lens through 00:28:16.799 --> 00:28:19.400 which to view modern economic policy. Thank you 00:28:19.400 --> 00:28:21.180 so much for joining us on this deep dive into 00:28:21.180 --> 00:28:22.779 the architecture of the Social Security Act. 00:28:23.319 --> 00:28:24.299 We will see you next time.