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First Proponents for Social Security
Many people attribute Social Security to the FDR administration, and this is true for the current form of the administration that was established in the 30s. However, Social Security as an idea is as old as the nation. Thomas Paine, one of our founding fathers and author of Common Sense, was an early advocate of Social Security. In order to fund the system, Paine proposed an estate tax. Property owners disagreed and instead said that charitable donations should suffice. Paine’s rebuttal was that this pension system was not a charity, instead it was an entitlement owed to the workers. He believed that workers should not live in poverty when they reached an age that disallowed them to continue working. For more information on this subject, visit this article by Harry Brill with Berkeley Daily Planet.