The union times., 1945-08-18
There's Still A Struggle Ahead For AL Of Us

(LPA)-Ten years ago, bread winner lived in constant terror that being out of work for a few weeks or months would leave his family irretrievabIy in debt. Second only to this was the fear that his sud- den death would leave wife and children penniless.
 For the last ten years-since the signing of the federal Social Security Act passed by Congress on August IA, spectacular progress has been achieved in making real the be- lief of American citizens that every worker is entitled to minimum secur- ity for himself and his family, and that the government has a responsi- bility in providing at least the basis of that security.
 Today, 72,OOO,OOO people are building up. credits toward benefits under the federal Old-age survi- vOr's insurance program. Already. well over a million people are re- ceiving monthly benefit payments amounting to more than $2O,OOO,- 900 each month. These include qualified workers who have retired at the age of 65 or later, their wives and dependent children, and the widows and children of de- ceased workers.
 Despite the great variation i'm the amounts granted as jobless bene- fits under the state unemployment insurance laws, the average weekly benefit now paid an unemployed worker ill the U. S. has risen two- fold since 194O. Now it averages $l5.9O. An estimated 36,OOO,OOO workers are now protected under Federal-State jobless benefit ma- chinery, and millions more are building up credits that will entitIe them to aid.
 Third side of the federal social se- curity machinery that began its work exactly ten years ago is the payment of monthly cash allowances for needy old people, dependent children, and the needy blind. More than $21a bil- lion has been paid to states to finance such programs, and of this 829o has SOllS 1OI Olu-dSG dSSlSCdIlCe.
 NOT WITHOUT STRUGGLE
 These great achievements in such short span of time were not accom- plished without struggle, as trade unionists would be the first to admit. Even in the depression of the early sos, champions of the unemployed had to break down the popular notion that "any man who really wants to work can get job." It took a long period of careful planning by Presi- dential Committee before bill was introduced into Congress. After public hearings and debate, the bill was passed overwhelmingly.
 That was not the end of the prob lems. States had to pass companion laws to provide unemployment com pensation. These laws had in turn to conform to requirements in the Federal law. Only then could funds be returned to the states. A test of the New York State law was car- ried to the Supreme Court by hos tile employers. The law was up- AAOAU9 DuI OAAy ny d lACu 1OUr IO IOuF vote. By 1887, a test of the na- tional Social Security Act had been carried to the Supreme Court, and on May A the constitutionality of the federal insurance programs was upheld by the Court.
 Today, new needs growing out of the war years are again testing the efficiency and scope of our social security system. Our success in glid- ing back to peacetime economy de- bends in large part" Social Security Board Chairman Arthur J. A1tmeyer says, "on making it possible for aged workers to retire and on tiding work CTS over from job to job without great loss of purchasing power"
 The stingy amounts paid to work CTS in some states as jobIess bene- fits-as low as $3 a week in Ar kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri-have created national problem. Is it fair, they ask, that