ANNOUNCER: Production support for "Social Security: 90 Years Strong" comes from AARP, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to choose how they live as they age.

On the web at aarp.org.

(match strike) ♪ ♪ KATHRYN EDWARDS: Social Security turns 90 this year and that is just proof positive that it is unrivaled in the pantheon of U.S.

social programs.

MAX RICHTMAN: We're celebrating its 90th birthday, a federal program that has lifted more people out of poverty than any other federal program ever devised.

BILL ARNONE: It's important to know the history of Social Security in particular, because when it was introduced, the government noticed that the economy was in a state of disarray, political turmoil was high.

SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY: For 90 years it's been part of the social fabric of America... JANICE FEREBEE: Thank God for Social Security.

♪ ♪ FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT: I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.

JIM ROOSEVELT: I believe that FDR was critical in creating so many things in the New Deal, and he was committed to the creation of Social Security.

It would've been a long time before we got to it, if he hadn't been able to get it done.

FDR: Today a hope of many years standing is in large part fulfilled.

JIM: I'm Jim Roosevelt.

My grandparents were President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

FDR: The civilization of the past 100 years, with its startling industrial changes has tended more and more to make life insecure.

JIM: When this was primarily an agrarian economy, several generations of a family lived in the same farmhouse, and there was not the easy and obvious distinction between those who could work for pay and those who could not.

As the industrialization of America took place, when people reached an age that they could not be hired by employers anymore to support themselves, there just wasn't anything to provide for their food, their clothing, and their housing.

NANCY ALTMAN: I'm Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works.

I have been working on social security for the last fifty years.

The United States was a latecomer to the concept of social insurance.

It started in Germany in the 1880s, and then other countries quickly followed suit.

It really took the Great Depression for the United States to finally jump in and enact its own social insurance, Social Security.

CREW: Bill Arnone interview, take one.

BILL: I'm Bill Arnone, I'm, uh, the founding board member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, which was created about forty years ago.

Social insurance is a way to provide protection against risks that face all of us, regardless of income or wealth or assets.

It's a public program.

The government pools resources, in this case, the resources are contributions you make to Social Security while you're working... And once you receive it, it's yours for the rest of your life.

ANNOUNCER: Five years of post-war depression impoverished our fortunes.

The result... over 10 million workers lost their jobs.

The aged, the blind, and dependent children were forced to fall back on private charity and local government organizations.

But local resources were not enough to provide adequate, regular assistance.

TRACEY GRONNIGER: Before Social Security, you had elderly people literally living in poor houses.

BILL: Old people were in desperate straits, and it was in the middle of an economic calamity that made things worse.

Even if you had savings, they were gone.

KATHRYN: It's very hard for us to conceive of a world before Social Security when most of us had the retirement plan of either dying on the job or dying in a child's house, you know, in a back room.

TRACEY: Clearly FDR and his administration found that unacceptable and felt like they had to do something about it.

FDR: I pledge myself to a New Deal for the American people.

NANCY: Franklin Roosevelt had a kind of humility that came from his polio.

And he really responded to those who are most vulnerable in our society.

BILL: He was brilliant, masterful.

He was a great salesman and a doer.

FDR: This nation is asking for action, and action now!

BILL: He also had a very good wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, who was his conscience.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: There are many things that are not perfect in our country.

Many things that we want to change.

JIM: My grandmother was my grandfather's eyes and ears.

She traveled around the country when he couldn't do that.

So she told him what she saw out there.

She told him about the people in poverty, the people in need.

FDR: There is still today a frontier that remains unconquered.

This is the great, the nationwide... frontier of insecurity.

NANCY: President Franklin Roosevelt established an interagency task force, a Committee on Economic Security.

And that's what led to Social Security... which was enacted just nine months after that.

ANNOUNCER: When FDR assumes the presidency in 1933, he begins by making an unprecedented appointment.

As his Secretary of Labor, FDR appoints the first lady cabinet member in history.

FRANCES PERKINS: It is hoped that we may put ourselves on a rational basis, both for recovering from this depression and for preventing in the future this peculiar phenomenon of depression following periods of high production and high prosperity!

JIM: My grandfather made Frances Perkins Secretary of Labor, and she made a condition of taking that job that he would let her help design a Social Security system and get it enacted.

BILL: Thank God for Frances Perkins.

She made a real difference in how Social Security was developed.

GIOVANNA GRAY LOCKHART: I'm Giovanna Gray Lockhart, the Executive Director of the Frances Perkins Center, the official partner of the Frances Perkins National Monument in Newcastle, Maine.

Frances Perkins started her career as a social worker.

She saw firsthand the inequities that working people, immigrants, particularly women and children, and how they were impacted by the Great Depression and the lack of a safety net in America.

We would not have Social Security today without Frances Perkins.

She was behind the scenes.

She was the one that FDR trusted to get [ deleted ] done.

NANCY: When Social Security was being debated in 1935, conservatives had very colorful attacks on Social Security.

They of course called it socialism, but they also said that it was gonna bring down the pillars of our democracy.

It was gonna crush us.

ALF LANDON: The largest tax bill in history!

And to call it Social Security is a fraud on the working man!

(audience applause) KATHRYN: Frances Perkins had the ability to talk across different stakeholders like employers and workers, and understand what was at risk from continuing to be in conflict.

GIOVANNA: Legend has it that Frances Perkins got all of the parties that were necessary to pass this bill around the table and she put a bottle of scotch in the middle and said, "We're not leaving here until this gets done."

NANCY: President Franklin Roosevelt used every opportunity he could to push for the enactment of the Social Security Act.

ANNOUNCER: The nation's lawmakers passed an act to safeguard the security of American workers and their families... the Social Security Act, with an overwhelming nonpartisan vote.

JIM: This is a great photo of my grandfather, Franklin D. Roosevelt, signing the Social Security Act in August of 1935.

Over his shoulder is the main mover behind the creation of many of the details of Social Security, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins.

FDR: We can never insure 100% of the population against 100% of the hazards and vicissitudes of life.

But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family... against poverty-stricken old age.

CREW: Interview with Max Richtman.

MAX: I'm Max Richtman, President and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

From the very beginning, FDR made sure that Social Security was a benefit Americans felt that they had earned.

NANCY: It was extremely important to President Roosevelt that his Social Security plan would be one where workers earn their benefits through contributions from their wages.

He wanted it to be completely self-financed.

And that's part of his genius.

It's part of the reason I believe today that the American people understand that Social Security is not a handout.

It's a benefit that they have paid for and earned.

ANNOUNCER: 26 million of the men and women now employed build up benefit rights entitling them to receive from the federal government monthly incomes for life up to $85 per month when they retire at 65 years of age or over.

CREW: Take one.

TRACEY: I'm Tracey Gronniger, I'm the managing director of Economic Security and Housing at Justice in Aging.

Social Security is an earned benefit.

People work for their entire lives and pay into this program and we have to make sure that it's there for them when they are ready to retire or they become disabled.

TOMEKA MUHAMMAD: Anybody who's paying into that pot should benefit from getting Social Security, period point blank.

That's just non-negotiable.

That should not be touched because you need that for people to survive.

GEORGE CLARK: You work most of your life and hoping to get something out of it, which I did, and I'm grateful for it.

JIM: When people ask my grandfather about why Social Security was structured to be paid for by workers and employers equally rather than out of income taxes or any other taxes.

My grandfather said, "No damn politician will ever dare to scrap my Social Security program."

MAX: No damn politician can ever scrap my Social Security program.

SENATOR TOM HARKIN: No damn politician can mess with the Social Security, or take Social Security away, I've heard that.

I don't know if it's true or not, but... (chuckles) JIM: Like every major policy, Social Security was what could get through Congress.

That meant it wasn't perfect when it was enacted.

It didn't include agricultural workers.

It didn't include household workers.

Gradually it was amended over the years to make it more comprehensive, to make it more fair, and to make it more equitable for all of our society.

(patriotic trumpet flourish) ANNOUNCER: Within a reasonable time, you will receive a card from the Social Security board.

This is destined to become the most popular card in America!

It is the most valuable piece of pasteboard you will ever own!

MAX: When FDR signed Social Security into law... he saw it as a starting point... and said that it would have to be expanded in the future.

JIM: In 1939, spousal and survivor benefits were added.

That was building on the cornerstone that started in 1935 because Social Security is a family program.

REPORTER: This insurance is important not only to you... it's important to your wife, your children, your parents.

BILL: Among the poorest in our country were, uh, widows in particular who were in desperate need for help.

There was a sense that the children who lost a caregiver were in need of help.

So there was a strong emotional undercurrent to add benefits to protect those who needed it the most.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ PRESIDENT DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER: All branches of this government, and I venture to say both of our great parties, can support the general objective of the recommendations I make today.

For that objective is the building of a stronger America.

JIM: In 1956, disability benefits were added to Social Security.

Why did they need it?

Because when they were disabled, they couldn't work anymore.

They didn't have a regular paycheck coming in.

TRACEY: The point of the program was to make sure that we weren't letting people fall into poverty.

And people who are working and then become disabled are part of that group of people.

NANCY: Today, there are millions of Americans and their families who receive disability insurance benefits.

♪ ♪ NANCY: President Richard Nixon in 1972 proposed and signed into law extremely important Social Security Amendments, another expansion building on Franklin Roosevelt's cornerstone.

Those amendments index Social Security automatically every year so that our benefits keep pace with the cost of living.

MAX: Can you imagine if we did not have these automatic COLAs?

Without them, benefits would basically be cut every year because of inflation.

CHIEF JUSTICE: Raise your right hand and repeat after me.

I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear RONALD REAGAN: I Ronald Reagan do solemnly swear... CHIEF JUSTICE: That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.

REAGAN: That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.

ROBERT MacNEIL: Restoring the weakened Social Security system to solvency may be the single most difficult political issue facing U.S.

politicians this winter.

Changing demographics, rising benefits and the effects of recession are already starving the system of cash.

Unless some radical correcting is done, the retirement fund will be in deeper trouble in the next few years.

NANCY: Congress was starting to enact legislation, and they kept asking the Reagan administration for its proposal.

Its proposal was so extreme, it set off a firestorm.

And to quiet the firestorm, Ronald Reagan proposed a bipartisan commission to develop recommendations.

Ronald Reagan named Alan Greenspan the chair of that Social Security Commission, and its mission was to make recommendations to Congress about how best to restore Social Security to short range and long range balance.

JIM LEHRER: Is it true that what it's really boiling down to now is an argument over raising taxes on the one side or lowering benefits on the other?

ALAN GREENSPAN: Yes, I would say that it's a slight, but only a slight simplification of the basic views, not only of the commission, which I'm involved with, and the Congress, but it really is the American people.

SENATOR BOB DOLE: I think the key word in this should be compromise.

You know, this is the only plan in town.

It's easy to oppose the only plan in town, but this is a sound, balanced, fair proposal.

CREW: Senator Tom Harkin.

Take one.

SEN.

HARKIN: I'm retired United States Senator Tom Harkin from the state of Iowa.

I remember that both Senator Dole and Senator Moynihan on our side pulled us together to hammer out an agreement with the administration to finally get it passed.

So everybody gave a little bit, and it stood the test of time.

JIM: So the 1983 amendments on Social Security made sense overall.

They were a compromise.

If you look at who negotiated that, you had the very strong Democratic Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, and you had the very persuasive Republican president, Ronald Reagan.

SEN.

GRASSLEY: We had a Republican president and a Democrat Speaker of the House uh, that, uh, said, this is such a good program, people depend on it.

We've got to save it.

If they were alive today, they'd be very proud of what they did.

I'm very proud of what they did, and I hope we can duplicate that before Social Security has the same problems they had in 1983.

BILL: Raising the age of retirement is a benefit reduction.

They didn't talk about it that way at the time because you know what they said?

"It's not gonna hit people for 20 or 30 years from now.

They'll never know what hit them."

SEN.

HARKIN: As I remember it, I was opposed to raising the retirement age.

But we all compromised, and then it was phased in, as you know, over a long period of time.

Social Security has been secure ever since.

(audience applause) BILL: 2005, George W. Bush, starting his second term, feeling he had a mandate, decided to take on the so-called third rail of American politics, Social Security.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Social Security reform must offer personal savings accounts to younger workers who want them.

MAX: We were in our boardroom, our staff, watching him come to the podium the day after he was reelected and claiming victory.

And the first thing out of his mouth was, I have earned political capital in this campaign.

I'm gonna use that political capital to privatize Social Security.

We were shocked.

BILL: And he did it in a very controversial way, change it fundamentally, where your benefit will be based on how well you invest money.

NANCY: So, George W. Bush did a photo opp in West Virginia in front of the filing cabinets that contain those trillions of dollars of treasury bonds and tried to say, "Hey, see, they're just pieces of paper."

BUSH: And what's very important is to make sure that in the future, that there's real assets for, for, uh, retirees.

MAX: And, there was no cash.

Well, of course there was no cash.

It was trillions of dollars in the trust fund.

It wouldn't make sense to have that sitting around in cash.

BILL: So he made a very good effort to sell it, and it bombed.

The more he went around the country explaining it, the more he scared the daylights outta people.

NANCY: And the American people didn't buy it.

And even though there were Republicans in charge of Congress, the privatization proposal did not even get a vote.

(Stock exchange closing bell) KATHRYN: You know, there's a reason why there's not a private alternative to Social Security 'cause you simply can't buy the protection that it's able to provide you.

I think about this year, in which Social Security turns 90 has been, at least for the stock market, particularly tumultuous.

NEWS ANCHOR: The stock market closed out the week with the worst day of the year so far... the Dow losing 748 points.

KATHRYN: Social Security is designed to be completely insulated from the throes of the stock market and the throes of the economy.

NANCY: Plenty of people think that if they could just take their Social Security contributions and invest them in the stock market, they would be better off.

They are completely wrong.

JANICE FEREBEE: Janice Ferebee, author, speaker, female empowerment expert.

So I was 62 when I started collecting.

I'll be 70 in September, so eight years ago.

My benefit goes mainly towards my rent.

A cut to Social Security would be very challenging for me.

I do have several friends from high school that do rely completely on Social Security.

For them, it is a lifeline, it's essential.

TRACEY: Social Security is critical to women because, historically, women have had to take off work to be caregivers.

Women have also faced gender discrimination and their wages have been lower than men.

SUZANNE LEEDY: Without Social Security we would have no income.

Susie was diagnosed in 2000 with MS, and then had a stroke in 2020.

Since then she's been diagnosed with dementia.

It never occurred to me that caregiving was gonna be part of our lives.

Now, we have pretty good Social Security.

Fortunately our house is paid for.

We couldn't do it if that weren't the case.

TRACEY: Social Security is also crucial for communities of color.

There is a huge wealth gap and communities of color have not been able to build the same amount of wealth as white counterparts.

Social Security provides that stability.

It provides that income that is needed, and it is something that, you know, without it, we would see so many millions more in poverty today.

ELIZABETH RICE: Social Security is one of the most dependable things that we have.

RODNEY ORCUTT: It will mean the world to me when I do start receiving it and anything less than what I am expecting, I won't be able to live within my budget.

(match strike) MAX: We have a social insurance program that's worked for 90 years.

And to maintain that for at least another 90 years would be a very important goal for our country.

BILL: The American people have time and time again expressed their love for Social Security.

I don't think any government program has that level of public support as Social Security does.

TRACEY: It's really incredible that we've had Social Security for 90 years and it's something I'm really proud of and I'm proud that our country has.

SEN.

GRASSLEY: It's grown to be very much a social contract between the people of this country and their government.

And it's part of the social fabric of America and it must be retained and it will be retained.

JIM: A cake with 90 candles would probably be dangerous, but I think that the 90 year success of Social Security should be celebrated in any way possible.

KATHRYN: Happy 90th birthday, Social Security.

Here's to the next 90 years.

MAX: Happy 90th Birthday Social Security, many more years to come.

♪(music plays through credits)♪ ANNOUNCER: Production support for "Social Security: 90 Years Strong" comes from AARP, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to choose how they live as they age.

On the web at aarp.org.