What U.S. President started the Social Security Administration?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt started the Social Security Administration through the Social Security Act of 1935. Roosevelt signed the landmark New Deal legislation on August 14, 1935, creating a federal old-age insurance program and a Social Security Board to administer it.

The program emerged from the economic devastation of the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s Committee on Economic Security studied unemployment and old-age poverty before proposing a national system funded largely through payroll taxes. The original law also supported unemployment insurance and several forms of aid to vulnerable families and children.

There is an important historical naming detail. The agency created in 1935 was formally called the Social Security Board; it was renamed the Social Security Administration in 1946. Because the Board was the direct predecessor of today’s SSA and was created by Roosevelt’s law, Roosevelt is the standard answer to this quiz question.

The first Social Security taxes were collected in 1937, and the first monthly retirement payment went to Ida May Fuller in 1940. The modern program also includes survivors and disability benefits.