Dependent and Disability Pension Act

Examples of Dependent and Disability Pension Act in the following topics:

• Republican Reform Under Harrison

  • Civil service reform, pension reform, and the "Billion Dollar Congress" characterized the Harrison administration's Republican reforms.
  • His opposition to Civil War pensions and inflated currency also made enemies among veterans and farmers.
  • Harrison quickly saw the enactment of the Dependent and Disability Pension Act in 1890, a cause he had championed while in Congress.
  • In addition to providing pensions to disabled Civil War veterans, regardless of the cause of their disability, the act depleted some of the troublesome federal budget surplus.
  • The Sherman Antitrust Act, which prohibited business combinations that restricted trade, and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which required the U.S. government to mint silver were both authored by Senator John Sherman.

• Launching the New Deal

  • The Emergency Banking Act followed the Proclamation and enabled the government to close weak banks and reopen more stable banks.
  • The National Labor Relations Act (1933; known also as the Wagner Act), which established the National Labor Relations Board (1935).
  • The Act remains a groundbreaking statute in the United States labor law.
  • The Social Security Act (1935) established the welfare system by providing financial support for dependent minors, the disabled, and the elderly (old-age pensions).
  • The Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) was the first federal law that included a national minimum wage and the forty-hour week as the standard work week.

• Employee Retirement Income Security Act

  • Businesses who voluntarily set up pension and health plans in private industry must adhere to rules ERISA rules that protect employees.
  • Because of COBRA certain former employees, retirees, spouses, former spouses, and dependent children ("qualified beneficiaries") the right to temporary continuation of health coverage at group rates.
  • The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) was enacted on September 2, 1974.
  • Studebaker's pension plan was so poorly funded that only 3,600 workers who were of retirement age received full pension benefits, 4,000 workers aged 40–59 who had ten years with Studebaker received lump sum payments valued at roughly 15% of the actuarial value of their pension benefits, and the remaining 2,900 workers received no pensions .
  • There have been several significant amendments to ERISA concerning health benefit plans two of which are the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

• Pensions and Unemployment Insurance

  • About half of all privately employed people and most government employees are covered by some type of pension plan.
  • Employers are not required to sponsor pension plans, but the government encourages them to do so by offering generous tax breaks if they establish and contribute to employee pensions.
  • The amount of money available to employees upon retirement, then, depends on how much has been contributed and how successfully the employees invest their own the funds.
  • The federal government administers several types of pension plans for its employees, including members of the military and civil service as well as disabled war veterans.
  • Unlike Social Security, unemployment insurance, also established by the Social Security Act of 1935, is organized as a federal-state system and provides basic income support for unemployed workers.

• Labor Standards

  • Employers say that their ability to compete depends in part on having the freedom to hire or lay off workers as market conditions change.
  • The Age and Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 protects older workers against job discrimination.
  • The Occupational Health and Safety Act of 1971 requires employers to maintain safe working conditions.
  • The Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, sets standards for pension plans established by businesses or other nonpublic organizations.
  • The Americans With Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, assures job rights for handicapped persons.

• Toward a Welfare State

  • The same was largely true for other vulnerable populations that today may rely on some state support, including the disabled, single mothers, and the unemployed.
  • Perhaps the most important and influential program of the New Deal was the 1935 Social Security Act (SSA).
  • The Act established a permanent system of retirement pensions (Social Security), unemployment insurance, and welfare benefits for the handicapped and needy children in families without father present (the latter under the program known as the Aid to Dependent Children, ADC).
  • Roosevelt insisted that SSA should be funded by payroll taxes, rather than from the general fund "so as to give the contributors a legal and political right to collect their pensions and unemployment benefits."
  • In 1935, Roosevelt called for a tax program called the Wealth Tax Act (Revenue Act of 1935) to redistribute wealth.

• Neglected Americans and the New Deal

  • Similarly, the original version (later amended) of the 1935 Social Security Act did not provide old-age pensions for farm and domestic workers.
  • Analogously, the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which established federal minimum wage and maximum working hours, excluded agricultural and domestic labor.
  • Men were seen as breadwinners and women as "dependents" and the New Deal agenda embraced the belief without any reservations.
  • The 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act, the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, and the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act all excluded agricultural and domestic workers.
  • Under its provisions, not only were domestic and agricultural workers but also charity and religious organizations employees excluded from the old-age pension benefits.

• Toward a Welfare State

  • Aid to veterans, free grants of land, and pensions for widows and handicapped veterans, have been offered in all U.S. wars.
  • The Children's Bureau played a major role in the passage and administration of the Sheppard-Towner Act, the first federal grants-in-aid act for state-level children's health programs.
  • The Sherwood Act of May 11, 1912, was the first important U.S. pension law in the twentieth century.
  • It awarded pensions to all veterans.
  • Veterans of the Mexican-American War and Union veterans of the Civil War could receive pensions automatically at age 62, regardless of disability.

• Cleveland and the Special Interests

  • In 1887, he signed an act creating the Interstate Commerce Commission.
  • He vetoed hundreds of private pension bills for American Civil War veterans, believing that if their pension requests had already been rejected by the Pensions Bureau, Congress should not attempt to override that decision.
  • When Congress, pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service, Cleveland also vetoed that.
  • This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated.
  • Cleveland dropped all talk of reinstating the Queen, and went on to recognize and maintain diplomatic relations with the new Republic of Hawaii.

• Civil Rights of the Elderly

  • The elderly, or senior citizens, are vulnerable to civil rights abuses due to a propensity for sickness, disability, and poverty.
  • Because of a propensity for illness, disability, and lack of employment, the elderly are faced with unique civil rights challenges.
  • Roosevelt's Social Security Act funded medical care for aging Americans.
  • Johnson signed the Older Americans Act (OAA) into law.
  • Additionally, in 1967, Congress passed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.