Disability Benefits

It took the United States nearly two hundred years before it realized the importance of setting up a system for citizens who have become unable to work and need assistance to ensure they can still provide for themselves. Up until 1956 an individual who became disabled had little to no protections and had to rely on the help of others if they fell on hard times and couldn't work anymore.

Of all the pieces of legislation that came about to help dig America out of the Great Depression, none had a greater impact than the Social Security Act. This single piece of legislation and subsequent amendments expanding the eligible number of recipients dramatically rewrote the social compact between the federal government and the citizens it governs.