Church & Society

Social Insurance

Foreword by Patricia K. Gleich

This morning, as I stopped at a traffic signal on my way to church, I noticed a woman standing on one of the corners of the intersection and holding a hand-lettered sign: "Will work for food." Her worn and weary face and her weathered clothing made it difficult to guess her age; most likely she was in her late 50s or early 60s. As I sat impatiently, waiting for the light to change, she glanced my direction. When she caught my eye, however, she quickly lowered her gaze in a look of absolute humiliation. She did not look again; the signal changed and I drove on.

As I sat in the confort of our climate-controlled sanctuary and brunched after worship on the abundance available to me, I could not expunge her image from my mind. Neither could I stop asking, "How can the wealthiest country in the world permit this?" "How can a nation of people who purport to model moral standards for the entire world condone this?" Do we no longer expect the government, funded through our tax dollars, to provide adequate resources to protect our citizens from destitution?"

It is hours later, yet I still cannot erase that haunting look: the shame, the indignity of a woman forced to beg.

This issue of C&S asks that we examine questions such as these not as political questions, but as moral ones. It also suggests that we approach them not as Democrats, Republicans or members of any political party, but as People of Faith. Does our faith allow us to look the other way to avoid the eyes of a woman forced to beg? Does our faith suggest we do nothing as the livelihood of our neighbors is threatened by the loss of a national system of social insurance? Does our faith permit us to reside in individualized zones of comfort, insulated from the millions who do not have access to health care? Does our faith encourage us to believe that as long as we, personally, are secure, nothing — and no one — else matters?

I would hope not.

A Covenant Broken

In 1935, through the programs of the New Deal, the United States made a convenant to provide a degree of economic safety for its people. Current leadership describes its primary role as that of "protecting and defending the country." However, just as we recognize that the "church" is not the building but the community of believers who worship there, so the "country" is not merely a geo-political entity but the totality of the people who reside within its boundaries. The notion of "protection" must extend beyond the structure of governance and its military/security hardware. Protection must include the people themselves, creating an environment where one's sense of self-belief, safety, hopefulness and dignity are inextricably bound by shared community and common good.

Through most of the last century, govenmental policies and programs, indeed the policies of the Presbyterian Church, have supported the biblically-grounded view that it is the responsibility of a faithful people to help meet the needs of others. As Paul wrote to the Philippians (2:1-5),

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord andof one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus ...

Many of today's governmental policy directives allege that domestic social programs — such as those derived from the New Deal, programs that assist poor people, disabled persons, children, the elderly and families where the breadwinner is retired, disabled or deceased — are mis placed and outdated. This policy direction seems to reverse the convenantal obligation articulated more than 70 years ago.

Social Programs of the New Deal

In 1935, writing as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Oakland, California, Jesse H. Baird shared his concerns regarding the need for the social programs such as those initiated in the New Deal with FDR:

Some kind of old age pension is becoming absolutely necessary. Medical science is enabling people to live twenty years longer than they did a century ago. The machine age is creating technological unemployment which makes it impossible seemingly for all people to work. The old people are the ones who are squeezed out first because they are the least desirable of the workers.

Economic security must be achieved. Our present system of alternate cycles of prosperity and depression is demoralizing to the whole social order and tragic for the vast area of our population who do not have large enough income to develop a savings account.1

Roosevelt, knowing that a sense of safety and hope stemmed from common goals and a commitment to the common good, understood and articulated the need for a social responsibility. In accepting the nomination of his party in 1932, he explained, "This nation is not merely a nation of independence, but it is, if we are to survive, a nation of interdependence ..."2 And, in his first inaugural address (1933), he left no doubt that his religious teachings had informed his values.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.3

While then, as now, the call to community and the application of "social" values did not meet with universal appeal, the staggering financial desperation of the 1930s made it clear that immediate action was necessary.

Following the stock market crash of 1929, the United States slipped into an economic depression: Unemployment exceeded 25 percent; more than 10,000 banks failed; the GNP declined from $105 billion in 1929 to $55 billion in 1932. Compared to pre-Depression levels, net new business investment was a minus $5.8 billion in 1932. Wages paid to workers declined from $50 billion in 1929 to $30 billion in 1932. By 1934, over half of the elderly people in America lacked sufficient income to be self-supporting.4

In June 1934, describing the compelling need for social and economic reform, Roosevelt told Congress,

We are compelled to employ the active interest of the Nation as a whole through government in order to encourage a greater security for each individual who composes it ... This seeking for a greater measure of welfare and happiness does not indicate a change in values. It is rather a return to values lost in the course of our economic development and expansion ...5

Relief, Recovery and Reform

Ultimately, the New Deal included federal action of unprecedented scope, which was designed to alleviate much of the economic, political and social devastation of the Depression by stimulating industrial recovery, assisting those hit hardest and guaranteeing minimum living standards. Initially, programs were primarily concerned with relief, e.g., setting up shelters and soup kitchens to feed the millions of unemployed. As time went on, however, the focus shifted toward recovery and permanent programs to insure against future economic downturns and to thwart poverty.

As part of the effort of permanent reform, several governmental agencies and long-standing legislative initiatives were created:

• The Public Works Administration (PWA/WPA) was designed to stimulate U.S. industrial recovery by putting federal funds into large-scale construction projects. The PWA built schools, libraries and highways. It was the most important New Deal work-relief agency, preserving people's skills and self-respect by providing useful work through approximately 8 million jobs. In addition, the WPA sponsored the Federal Theater Project, the Federal Art Project and the Federal Writers' Project, which provided work for people in the arts.
• The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a program designed to both reduce unemployment among young men and preserve the nation's natural resources, was one of the earliest and most effective of the New Deal relief agencies.
• The Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) established a federal minimum wage and maximum-hours policy. The minimum wage (25 cents per hour) applied to many workers engaged in interstate commerce.
• The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) tried to raise prices by controlling farm production. It identified nine basic crops and paid farmers to decrease their acreage in each of them.
• The National Recovery Administration (NRA) permitted businesses to draft "codes of fair competition," with presidential approval, that regulated prices, wages, working conditions and credit terms.6

The great Depression had left hundreds of thousands of people homeless, living in shantytowns, under bridges and in public areas. A crucial innovation of the New Deal was the first federal housing program, administered by the Public Works Administration (PWA). During its four years of operation, from 1933 to 1937, the PWA Housing Division built more than 50 housing developments, containing a total of 25,000 units of housing, around the country.

Although current approaches to public housing are much different, some of these developments have been praised for their high design standards, their lively social life and spaces where residents were able to participate in art classes, put on plays and hold meetings. Several also incorporated day care facilities.7

Also, organized labor received a tremendous boost when the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, known as the Wagner Act, gave federal sanction to the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively. It established an independent National Labor Relations Board to oversee representation and elections and adjudicate labor disputes. After the Wagner Act, labor union membership swelled from 3.8 million in 1935 to 12.6 million by 1945.

Social Security: The Cornerstone

On August 14, 1935, the Social Security Act, a cornerstone of the New Deal, was signed into law. In addition to several provisions for the general welfare, the new act created a social insurance program that was designed to pay retired workers age 65 or older a continuing income after retirement. In Roosevelt's words,

This social security measure gives at least some protection to 30 millions of our citizens who will reap direct benefits through unemployment compensation, through old-age pensions and through increased services for the protection of children and the prevention of ill health.

We can never insure 100 percent of the population against 100 percent 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 the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age. It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness."8

The Common Good

The New Deal was more than a series of laws and court decisions. It was an initiative for social and economic change. It was also a covenant designed to restore the confidence of and motivate action from a people who felt both hopeless and abandoned by their government. It was a call to a permanent sense of community as a nation — to shared responsibility and contributions toward the common good.

Roosevelt concisely addressed these community needs and obligations in a speech to the Congress in 1935:

We find our population suffering from the old inequalities, little changed by our past sporadic remedies. In spite of our effort and in spite of our talk, we have not weeded out the over-privileged and we have not effectively lifted up the underprivileged. ... We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him and his a proper security, a reasonable leisure and a decent living throughout life is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power."9

The Shifting Paradigm

After 70 years, current policy directions seem to be shifting from this paradigm of interdependence and social responsibility to one of independence and individual acquisition. The impact of this shift extends far beyond the programs currently under debate. It encompasses a theological and philosophical redefinition of the role of the institution called government.

This issue of Church & Society grew out of an action of the 216th General Assembly (2004), "On Reaffirming the Importance of Our Nation's Social Insurance System (Social Security and Medicare)." The timeliness of the assembly's action is validated by the current debate centering on various proposals to revamp the Social Security program. However, as we delved into the subject we found other areas of the New Deal vision that were facing erosion as well.

Thus this issue attempts to provide a broad examination of the social covenant expressed between the government of the United States and the people of the United States through the policies emanating from the New Deal. It focuses largely on the social insurance system (Social Security), but it also explores, within the context of church and social policy, the impact that a variety of policy and program changes are having and are projected to have on various demographic groups within the United States.

As you page through the articles of this issue, I hope you will view the information presented here not as a matter of theoretical assertion, but as a prophetic mandate — and that you will read these pages while holding as well the image of a worn and tired woman begging on a street corner near your place of worship. May this issue stir a call for moral justice within us all.

1. Clergy Letter, First Presbyterian Church, Oakland, CA, Baird, Jesse H. FDR Library, President's Personal File, Entry 21, Box 4, October 19, 1935
2. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Speech Accepting the Democratic Nomination for President, 1932.
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt Inaugural speech, 1933.
4. Traditional Sources of Economic Security
5. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Message of the President to Congress, June 8, 1934.
6. In May 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the NRA unconstitutional on the grounds that the code-drafting process was unconstitutional.
7. Gail Radford, Associate Professor of History, SUNY Buffalo, "The Legacy of New Deal Housing Reform," Speech at the Center for New Deal Studies, Roosevelt University, Chicago, October 21, 1999.
8. Presidential Statement on Signing the Social Security Act, August 14, 1935
9. Basil Rauch, The History of the New Deal, Creative Age Press, 1944, pp. 146-147.