The Social Security Act of 1935 initiated a national old-age pension for wage workers. Under the Old Age Insurance program (OAI), workers and employers each paid a tax of 1 percent on the first three thousand dollars of wages. At age sixty-five workers could retire with a modest benefit. Because agricultural laborers and domestic servants were excluded from OAI coverage, three-fifths of African American workers were ineligible for these benefits, as were most Native Americans. Also excluded were teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians, and social workers—all predominantly female occupations. Of the 22 percent of women employed in 1930, 52 percent were not covered by Social Security.
In 1939 amendments to the Social Security Act added benefits for spouses and widows. The spouse benefit granted wives a portion of the full benefit if they were at least sixty-five and living with their husbands. Women separated from their husbands, even if they were still married, were ineligible for Social Security. Working wives were also ineligible if their own earned benefit was more than one-half the spouse's benefit. Divorced women, regardless of how long they had been married, were ineligible for a spouse benefit if their former husbands retired. Widows were only eligible for benefits if they were at least sixty-five, living with their husbands at the time of his death, and had never remarried. Like wives, widows were ineligible for benefits in their own names. Thus, the eligibility rules for benefits rewarded women in stable marriages who were supported by their husbands but penalized women who became separated or divorced or worked outside the home. Subsequent reforms have corrected some of these inequities.
Jill Quadagno
See also
Mothers' Pensions;
Welfare and Public Relief;
Welfare State.
