Evening star., 1940-01-30
Corson Discusses
Widened Benefits
Under Security Act
Forum Speaker Says
Benefits Are Going Out
To Miners Survivors

Insurance of the Social Security
Board, discussed benefits available
under the security amendments
passed last August, in the National
Radio Forum, arranged by The Star
and broadcast over a Nation wide
network of the National Broadcast
ing Co. last night. His subject was
"Your Family and Social Security" P"
The text of MIR. Corson's address
follows:
In the mails tonight, in post offices
throughout the land, are the first
checks for monthly old-age and sur
vivors' insurance payments. On
Thursday morning, February /, the
mail carriers will deliver these
checks to many American families.
Those who receive them will be
workers past the age of IS who have
retired from work, their wives and
children. Others who will receive
them will be the widows and chill
dren of workers who have died since
January /.
These monthly insurance pay
ments will continue to go out to
these families month after month.
They will replace, in part, the salary
check or the pay envelope which
stopped when the aging worker lost
his last job, or when he died Each
month during the next several years
thousands of additional families will
look to these payments to replace
the earnings which the breadWinner
can no longer bring home. Within
five years more than 100000 people
will be receiving such checks every
month and the total annual pay
ments to these families will be more
than half a billion dollars a year.
Not Relief Payments.
Let us be clear about these checks.
They are not relief for the needy
although most families need them in
times of the death or retirement of
the breadwinner They are not free
pensions They are insurance pay
ments made possible because every
worker in industry and commerce
has been paying insurance contribu-
tions-a penny tax out of each dollar
of wages, matched by another penny
from his employer. These premiums
have brought the worker and his
family under the protection of the
broadest social insurance program
ever undertaken.
Social insurance does more than
protect the worker and his family.
Like private insurance it exists for
the purpose of paying benefits to
those who are insured, when con-
tingency arises. But social insur-
ance, as its name implies, is designed
to do more than protect the insured
individual. Social insurance is de-
signed to protect the community, the
society, as we'll as the individual and
his family. It's benefits safeguard
our society against the costs of public
dependency, and against another
major threat to our economy-the
shrinkage of purchasing power. BY
providing monthly payments for
families who might otherwise become
dependent, because of the old age
or the death of breadwinner, this
social insurance system reduces re-
lief expenditures. At the same time,
these payments provide continuing
incomes, which will be spent largely
on food, shelter and clothing.
The mailing of these first old-age
and survivors insurance payments
today comes on about the fifth birth
day of this social insurance program
President Roosevelt sent his original
social security message to Congress
on January II, 1885. 1t was Benja-
min Franklin's birthday, and the
ghost of Poor Richard must have
taken an extra glass of his favorite
Madeira wine in celebration. For,
in recommending national old-age
insurance program, President Roose-
velt projected onto national scale
a modern version of the principles
of thrift that Benjamin Franklin
had stood for.
Heard Conflicting Views.
Congress considered these recon-
mendations carefully and thor
oughly. 1t listened to all sorts of
opinions on the problem of social
security before it made its final
decision. It listened to some groups
who said old-age security was very
simple thing. Just pass law, they
said, and give everybody fiat pen
sion-so much month, so much
week, when he or she reaches GER
tain age. Tax bread. Tax butter.
Tax meat and vegetables. Tax rent
and clothing. Tax everything a
man buys Or issue paper to pay the
bills. Family need has nothing to
do with it. Just pass law and
there you are. That's what one
group said.
Another group said insurance was
too complicated. Nothing would
work. Nothing could be done. Work.
ers wouldn't pay pennies. Employ
ers would be driven to the wall by
/ per cent tax on pay rolls. Some
said the reserve was too large. Some
said the reserve was too small. They
were for the idea-but nothing
would work.
Congress didn't believe social in
Sul dllCc was easy. CldU pcllolOll
schemes might sound plausible on
paper, but such proposals hadn't
worked anywhere. Congress didn't
want to bet the future well-being
of American workers on the chance
that it might work. They weren't
sure it would bring permanent plen-
ty-and if it wasn't sure it wouldn't
be security.
So Congress listened to experts
and actuaries who had studied So
cial insurance and private group in
surance, to businessmen who had
developed sound retirement plans
in their own industries and to lead
ers of labor. 1t tried to write an
act that was geared to the realities
of the industrial and commercial
economy which American workers
live in. Yet Congress knew that it
could not foresee all the problems
that might arise in an insurance
system that would cover tens of