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Social Security And The Great Depression

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Social Security

Alfred Malone

Sociology
Mrs. Joy Branch
14 November 2014

Social security was created in response to the Great Depression. The purpose of it is to protect aged and disabled persons from illness expenses, to give children a chance to grow up healthy and secure, keep families together, and to augment the material needs of individuals and families. The Social Security Act was first passed in 1935 and later amended in 1956 to provide disability benefits. Some programs included under the Social Security Act are: retirement insurance, survivor’s insurance, disability insurance, and some public assistance and welfare services. The Social Security program is meant to provide benefits,social security numbers, and generate its own finances. The first Social Security Numbers(SSN) were first issued in 1936. These cards each all have their own number used to track the earning histories of U.S. Workers. The cards also were used to determine Social Security benefit entitlement and benefit levels. The use of the SSN later expanded in terms of use. “As of December2008, the Social Security Administration (SSA) had issued over 450 million original SSNs, and nearly every legal resident of the United States had one” (Carolyn Puckett). The SSN led to what is mostly used today to identify and gather information on a person. This method is particularly used when applying for jobs. The largest source of income for most of today’s elderly comes from social

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