Tammy Baldwin: “Of all the programs instituted by government during our Nation's history, Social Security is arguably the most…”

“Of all the programs instituted by government during our Nation's history, Social Security is arguably the most successful, one of the most meaningful. It is the only universal defined benefit, inflation-protected pension system for American workers. It is a little known fact that Wisconsin had a very strong connection to Social Security in its origins, its authorship and its administration. In the 1920s, lured by the promise of quick profits, millions of Americans invested all of their assets in the stock market, losing everything when the Market crashed in 1929. In the Depression that followed, no group suffered more than the millions of senior citizens who had no income, no resources and were forced to live in poverty. Spurred by that tragedy, two Wisconsin natives and University of Wisconsin-trained economists led President Roosevelt's Committee on Economic Security in drafting and shepherding through Congress what became the Social Security Act of 1935. The conceptual underpinnings of Social Security came directly from what we call the Wisconsin Idea, the concept that governments and the university could and should collaborate to address serious social and economic problems.”