Social security programs first appeared in Europe in response to families moving from farming to working for others as the world became industrialized. Germany established the first social security program way back in 1889.
In the United States, the Great Depression triggered an economic crisis that caused millions of seniors to become impoverished. President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed the Social Security Act in 1935 in an attempt to provide economic security for the elderly.
Under the original Social Security retirement program, only workers received benefits , and only retirement benefits (there were no survivor or disability benefits under the original Social Security program). In 1939, the act was amended to provide benefits to spouses and children for both retired and deceased workers.
The monthly retirement benefit didn’t begin until 1940, and the first recipient was Ida May Fuller, a retired legal secretary. Ida May continued to receive benefits until she died at age 100.
Since then the program has been amended to include cost of living adjustments (COLAs), and disability benefits. Medicare wasn’t introduced until the 1960s.
As I mentioned in Social Security Retirement Age: When Can You Retire?,
the original retirement age was 65 (there was no early retirement). The law was changed in 1956 to allow women to apply at age 62, under the assumption that wives were younger than their husbands and that they would want to retire at the same time.
I find it interesting that men were not allowed to apply for benefits at age 62 until the law was amended again in 1961. Of course, under the current Social Security system, both men and women can apply as early as age 62 or as late as age 70.
To see the full history of Social Security, please visit Social Security History.
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