This is part of a 1936 US government pamphlet covering the “Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund” part of the Social Security Act . There were other parts concerning disability and other health car benefits.This wording was quoted from the pamphlet. It would be great to highlight several parts of this such as “
THERE is now a law in this country which will give about 26 million working people something to live on when they are old and have stopped working” I can see how people, then, might have thought of it as a “retirement” even though that is vigorously denied by our present day politicians. I can personally attest to the fact that it was being spoken of in this way in the early ‘60s when I signed up for my card* and received a similar piece of literature. You can see also, that the plan was for people that paid into the system, or, it they died early, their survivors.
Beginning in the 1960s, there was a terrific landslide of income into this trust fund due to the "baby boomers" coming into the workforce. This vast influx was needed to cover those same people as the entered retirement. So much money just sitting there being used by the treasure for collateral was too much for the politians to resist. This trust fund was robbed by the government starting in 1965 to pay for Lyndon Johnson’s “Great society” social welfare programs. This is no place to be political…… these programs were expanded under the administrations of Nixon and Ford.
The 1936 Government Pamphlet on Social Security
Beginning November 24, 1936, the United States Government will set up a Social Security account for you, if you are eligible. To understand your obligations, rights, and benefits you should read the following general explanation.
THERE is now a law in this country which will give about 26 million working people something to live on when they are old and have stopped working. This law, which gives other benefits, too, was passed last year by Congress and is called the Social Security Act.Under this law the United States Government will send checks every month to retired workers, both men and women, after they have passed their 65th birthday and have met a few simple requirements of the law.
WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU
THIS means that if you work in some factory, shop, mine, mill, store, office, or almost any other kind of business or industry, you will be earning benefits that will come to you later on. From the time you are 65 years old, or more, and stop working, you will get a Government check every month of your life, if you have worked some time (one day or more) in each of any 5 years after 1936, and have earned during that time a total of $2,000 or more.The checks will come to you as a right. You will get them regardless of the amount of property or income you may have. They are what the law calls "Old-Age Benefits" under the Social Security Act. If you prefer to keep on working after you are 65, the monthly checks from the Government will begin coming to you whenever you decide to retire
The Amount of Your Checks
How much you will get when you are 65 years old will depend entirely on how much you earn in wages from your industrial or business employment between January 1, 1937, and your 65th birthday.
OLD-AGE RESERVE ACCOUNT
Meanwhile, the Old-Age Reserve fund in the United States Treasury is drawing interest, and the Government guarantees it will never earn less than 3 percent. This means that 3 cents will be added to every dollar in the fund each year.
Maybe your employer has an old-age pension plan for his employees. If so, the Government's old-age benefit plan will not have to interfere with that. The employer can fit his plan into the Government plan.
What you get from the Government plan will always be more than you have paid in taxes and usually more than you can get for yourself by putting away the same amount of money each week in some other way.
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From Wikipedia
“Structure of the Social Security Trust Fund
Though widely used, the term "Social Security Trust Fund" is something of a misnomer, as the Social Security Administration of the United States actually oversees two separate funds that hold federal government debt obligations related to what are traditionally thought of as Social Security benefits. The larger of these funds is the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund, which holds in trust those funds that the federal government intends to use to pay future benefits to retirees and their survivors.[2] The second, smaller fund is the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund, which holds in trust those funds that the federal government intends to use to pay benefits to those who are judged by the federal government to be disabled and incapable of productive work, as well as to their spouses and dependents.[3]
The trust funds are "off-budget" and treated separately in certain ways from other Federal spending, and other trust funds of the Federal Government. “
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* For you youngsters; One originally did not sign up for a social securtiy card untill the stared working a “payroll” job. I started working a “payroll” job in the summer of my HS freshman year under a waiver for working as a minor. My earlier paying jobs were farm labor that did not require payroll deductions.
