“The Saint” by Charles Simic from Scribbled in the Dark. © Ecco Press, 2017. ORIGINAL AUDIO - 2017. TEXT NOT AVAILABLE The original Social Security Act was signed into law on this date in 1935. It was part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, and it was first intended to help keep senior citizens out of poverty. The country had had a national economic security program in place since the Civil War Pension Program began in 1862. But this program was only available to war veterans and their families; what's more, Confederate veterans were barred from the pension. After the onset of the Great Depression, poverty rates — especially among the elderly — skyrocketed. Some state pension plans were introduced, but they were inadequate and only served about 3 percent of the nation's elderly. FDR based his plan on "social insurance" policies operating in Europe, and envisioned a program funded by employment taxes collected from the workers themselves.
WHY do you persist in citing poems we cannot see...!? Mary Oliver, most prominently (Can't we defer ?). Isn't a-poem-a-day a primary purpose of this site?
I may be missing something. Please enlighten me.
Edward Wilson
WHY do you persist in citing poems we cannot see...!? Mary Oliver, most prominently (Can't we defer ?). Isn't a-poem-a-day a primary purpose of this site?
I may be missing something. Please enlighten me.
Edward Wilson