Timeline of Key Events in the History of Social Security

John Waggoner and Andy Markowitz,

Updated June 19, 2025

AARP

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Published August 13, 2020

/ Updated June 19, 2025

Social Security was born nearly 90 years ago, in August 1935. Over the decades, it has matured into a vital source of inflation-adjusted income for retirees, people with disabilities, and their dependents and survivors. In March 2025, the program paid nearly $139 billion in benefits to 73.6 million Americans — more than one-fifth of the population. Here's a timeline of significant events in the history of Social Security.

June 8, 1934: In a message to Congress, President Franklin D. Roosevelt outlines his goal to establish a national social insurance program featuring guaranteed benefits for retired workers. Three weeks later, he creates the Committee on Economic Security, composed of top cabinet members, to develop the program.

Jan. 17, 1935: After receiving the Committee on Economic Security’s report, FDR introduces the Economic Security Act, which would become the Social Security Act.

Aug. 9, 1935: Congress passes the Social Security Act.

Aug. 14, 1935: President Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law.

October 1936: The Social Security Board, precursor to today’s Social Security Administration (SSA), moves into its first headquarters — the Candler Building, a former Coca-Cola bottling plant on the Baltimore waterfront. No building available in Washington, D.C., could meet the program’s enormous space requirements for paperwork and filing cabinets.

November 1936: The first Social Security cards are issued. As the program is just beginning to open local offices nationwide, cards are initially distributed through post offices.

photos of a stack of applications and of ida fuller receiving the first monthly benefits check

Left: A stack of Social Security applications. Right: Ida M. Fuller was first Social Security monthly beneficiary.

AARP (Source: AP Newsroom (2), background: Getty Images))

Jan. 1, 1937: The fiirst Social Security benefits are issued as one-time, lump-sum payments.

Aug. 10, 1939: The program is broadened to include benefits for workers’ dependents and survivors.

Jan. 31, 1940: Ida M. Fuller receives the first monthly Social Security benefit. Her first check is for $22.54, the inflation-adjusted equivalent of about $519 today. Fuller lived to the age of 100.

October 1950: After a decade-plus of benefit amounts remaining the same, Congress authorizes the first Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), an increase of 77 percent.

Aug. 1, 1956: The Social Security Act is amended to provide benefits to workers with disabilities ages 50 to 64 and to adults with disabilities dating to childhood. Another amendment allows women to claim Social Security as early as 62, albeit with a reduced benefit. Previously, no one could claim retirement benefits until age 65.

January 1960: The SSA opens its new headquarters in Woodlawn, Maryland, just west of Baltimore. The sprawling suburban complex remains Social Security’s main campus.

September 1960: President Dwight Eisenhower signs legislation expanding eligibility for Social Security disability benefits. Payments can now go to workers of any age with disabilities and to their dependents.

June 30, 1961: The Social Security Act is amended to reduce the minimum eligibility age for retirement benefits to 62 for all workers, regardless of gender.

July 30, 1965: President Lyndon Johnson signs Medicare into law. The SSA is put in charge of administering enrollment for the national health insurance program serving Americans ages 65 and older (and later expanded to cover younger people with disabilities).

July 1, 1972: President Richard Nixon signs legislation establishing an annual, automatic COLA for Social Security payments, starting in 1975. Under the old system, adjusting benefits for inflation required congressional approval. The measure also mandates a yearly adjustment to the taxable wage base — the amount of a worker’s income subject to Social Security taxes.

Oct. 30, 1972: Congress establishes Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a national benefit program administered by Social Security that provides monthly cash payments to people who are 65 or older, blind, or have a disability and have very low incomes and limited assets.

July 1975: The first annual automatic COLA kicks in, boosting benefits by 8 percent.

Sept. 20, 1977: President Jimmy Carter signs legislation increasing the employee share of the payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare from 6.05 percent of a worker’s gross wages to the current rate of 7.65 percent, to be phased in through 1990.

July 1980: Reflecting the so-called “Great Inflation” of the late ‘70s, Social Security beneficiaries receive the highest annual COLA increase to date: 14.3 percent.

April 20, 1983: President Ronald Reagan signs the Social Security Amendments of 1983, a set of sweeping changes aimed at shoring up the program's shaky financial footing drawn from recommendations of the National Commission on Social Security Reform (also known as the Greenspan Commission). Provisions include accelerating the scheduled payroll tax increase enacted in 1977; gradually raising the full retirement age (FRA) from 65 to 67; and making 50 percent of Social Security benefit income taxable for recipients with overall incomes above $25,000 for an individual and $32,000 for a married couple filing jointly.

Oct. 1, 1988: A nationwide toll-free number, 800-772-1213, is established for people to contact the SSA.

Aug. 10, 1993: President Bill Clinton signs the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, a massive package of tax increases and spending cuts that includes a provision raising the share of Social Security benefits subject to income tax from 50 percent to 85 percent for beneficiaries with incomes above $34,000 (single) or $44,000 (couple).

May 17, 1994: The SSA official website is launched.

Oct. 1, 1999: Annual mailings of Social Security statements began. About 125 million workers ages 25 and older were sent statements showing their earnings history and projected benefits.

April 7, 2000: The Senior Citizens’ Freedom to Work Act of 2000 was signed into law, eliminating the Retirement Earnings Test (RET) for beneficiaries at or above full retirement age. (The earnings test still applies to those claiming retirement benefits before reaching their FRA.) The RET was an original feature of the Social Security Act.

Feb. 12, 2008: Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, the first baby boomer to apply for Social Security retirement benefits, received her first monthly payment.

May 1, 2012: Social Security statements become available online. Paper statements have largely been phased out; today, they only go out automatically to workers 60 and over who are not yet collecting benefits and have not set up an online My Social Security account.

March 17, 2020: Social Security field offices shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several months later, they begin offering in-person appointments in rare, “dire need” situations, but most services were offered only online or by phone.

April 7, 2022: Field offices fully reopen after more than two years of pandemic restrictions.

June 18, 2025: Social Security’s trustees release their 2025 annual report, which projects that the two trust funds from which benefits are paid will run short of reserve funds in 2034 unless Congress acts to shore up the program’s finances, as it did in 1983. Absent such action, the SSA will be able to pay only about 81 percent of scheduled benefits.

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John Waggoner is a contributing writer of all things financial for AARP, from budgeting and taxes to retirement planning and Social Security. Previously, he was a reporter for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and USA Today and has written books on investing and the 2008 financial crisis. Waggoner’s USA Today investing column ran in dozens of newspapers for 25 years.

Andy Markowitz is an AARP senior writer and editor covering Social Security and retirement. He is a former editor of the Prague Post and Baltimore City Paper.