80th Anniversary of Social Security This Year

America celebrated the 80th anniversary of Social Security in 2015. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935. At that time the U.S. was in the Great Depression and nearly half of the elderly in the country lived in poverty.

 

Today, millions of Americans rely on Social Security as a source of retirement income. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) declared that Social Security is critical to the economic security of the middle class. According to one of their surveys, 4 in 5 Americans rely on it or plan on retiring on it as their source of retirement income. In addition to retirees, disabled persons, their dependents, and survivors of the deceased also rely on it. Its administrative costs are low.

 

Although Social Security is gender neutral, women depend on it more than men. Three reasons are that women live longer than men and they are likely to live more years in retirement; elderly women are less likely than elderly men to have pension sources other than Social Security; and women are more likely to be low-wage earners and the Social Security system returns a higher percentage of earnings to low-wage earners than to high-wage earners. See http://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/women.htm for more reasons that Social Security is important to women.

 

Katie Jordan on the right with a friend.

WWHP Board member Katie Jordan, Treasurer of the Illinois Alliance of Retired Americans which represents 257,000 retirees, celebrated the 80th anniversary with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky on August 14 at the Centennial Activity Center in Park Ridge. U.S. Rep. Schakowsky called Social Security our "national treasure" and reminded participants of their responsibility to protect it and build on it. Katie was also invited to the White House Conference on Aging on July 13 where President Obama expressed his pride in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.

 

One of the most important architects of the Social Security Act was Frances Perkins, the first woman to hold a cabinet position in the U.S. Early in her life she had a Chicago connection. More about that in next month's E-newsletter.

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League of Women Voters -- An Anniversary

 

Carrie Chapman Catt

Many people know that this year marks the 95th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted women the right to vote following many years of struggle to achieve it. But also observing its 95th anniversary this year is the League of Women Voters.

In 1919, Carrie Chapman Catt, the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), proposed the creation of a league of women voters to "finish the fight" for suffrage. A League of Women Voters was formed within NAWSA, made up of organizations in the states where women had already won the right to vote. On February 14, 1920, six months prior to the ratification of the 19th amendment, the National League of Women Voters was formally organized in Chicago. Created out of the movement that secured voting rights for women, the League has focused its efforts on expanding participation in the political process and giving a voice to all Americans. Founded as a nonpartisan organization, the League has never endorsed nor opposed political candidates or parties, but rather works on issues of concern to its members and the general public.

In addition to pushing for the passage of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982 and winning passage of the National Voter Registration Act (Motor Voter), in earlier decades the League worked in areas including the fight to achieve a national Equal Rights Amendment (ultimately unsuccessfully); helping to pass the Sheppard-Towner Act, which provided federal aid to maternal and child care programs; fighting for the enactment of the Social Security and Food and Drug Acts; taking a leadership role in establishing the United Nations; and building a foundation for support of equal access to education, employment, and housing.

Now in its tenth decade, the League works on issues such as reforming immigration and defending the environment, while it continues with its main focus on protecting voters and ensuring that their voices are heard.

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WWHP's Child Care in Chicago at the Union League Club

WWHP's Child Care in Chicago Committee will present a program in the "Chicago in Focus" series sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Chicago. The event is free and takes place on November 18, 2015, from 5 pm to 7 pm, the program beginning at 5:30 pm. The Union League Club is at 65 W. Jackson Blvd, admission is free with a cash bar.

A short documentary will offer an opportunity to hear from the Chicagoans intimately involved in the use and work of child care in our city: voices of parents whose young children attend child care, and of those practitioners who care for them. The documentary is created from interviews WWHP collected in this past year. A speaker (TBA) will address the issues our interviewees raise. (More information in October's E-newsletter on the program.)

WWHP is pleased to once again be partnering with the League of Women Voters in Chicago. On June 11, 2013, we jointly celebrated the anniversary of women's suffrage in Illinois at the Exchequer Restaurant with Mary Bonnett's play "Radical Ideas! Women and the Vote" and Alderman Leslie Hairston speaking.

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