Paul Coverdell: “it is interesting that so much of our labor law dates back to the mid-1930s. H.R. 5 is a measure that deals with…”

“it is interesting that so much of our labor law dates back to the mid-1930s. H.R. 5 is a measure that deals with modernizing attitudes about work habits and workers and bringing them into the new century. It was in 1935, during the Great Depression, that it was decided to discourage people who were 65 and older from working. That was done by saying: If you do work, we can't keep you from working, but for every $3 you earn, we are going to take $1 of it, or charge you a surtax of 33 percent. It was a very arduous and imposing tax on individuals on Social Security. There are a number of major changes that have occurred in the workplace, but two I emphasize have become uniquely significant for this group of workers, age 65 to 69. No. 1, the United States is effectively unable to fill its workplace. We deal with that issue on a daily basis. We need workers. We need people who are highly trained, who have developed an expertise, as senior workers have done. And we need them to stay in the workplace, if we are going to fill the American workplace. The second issue that has created a very serious and significant change is that many of these workers must do so in order to keep up with the financial pressures of this time, with the increase in costs of medicine and other matters dealing with senior years.”