Wilbur Joseph Cohen Papers, 1937-1942
Collection Number: 5222

Includes letters, memoranda, and reports of the meetings of the United States Social Security Advisory Council during the period Cohen served as its technical advisor (1937-1938), as well as correspondence, reports, notes, pamphlets, ,statistical studies and other documents assembled by Cohen, relating to economic security.

Correspondence (1932-1948) discusses old age benefits in general, including methods of financing,, the wage base, women's eligibility, and various alternative schemes. Disability insurance is also examined: its feasibiity, benefit specifications, and the medical, surgical, and institutional care of annuitants. Revisions to Title II of the Social Security Act are discussed, including the possibility of extending coverage to employees of charitable agencies and state governments. Changes in AC 12, especially coverage of women and the children of deceased wage earners, are mentione,d as are proposas for the coverage of dependent children, agricultural laborers, the self-employed and widows under AC 13. Coverage of dependent children, still an issue in AC 14, is discussed, as is the exclusion of mental illness from th edisability definition. Title VIII of the Act, especially in relation to the inclusion of state and charitable workers, is the subject of correspondence, as is the possibility of a guaranteed annual wage.

The major correspondents include Wilbur J. Cohen, J. Douglas Brown (chairman, Advisory Council on Social Security), Arthur J. Altmeyer (chairman, Social Security Board), Eleanor Lansing Dulles (chief, Division of Old Age Benefits Research, Bureau of Research and Statistics), John J. Corson (director, Bureau of Old Age Insurance), Murray W. Latimer (chairman, Railroad Retirment Board), Alanson W. Wilcox (assistant general counsel), Edwin F. Witte (professor, University of Wisconsin, Department of Economics), I.S. Falk (acting director, Bureau of Research and Statistics),, and W.R. Williamson (actuarial consultant).

Reports and papers (ca. 1935-1957) on the overall issue of economic security (old age security, unemployment compensation, aid to children and the handicapped) include a report by I.S. Falk on permanent and total disability (1938); an analysis by Abraham Epstein of the federal old age insurance plan; a statement by Emile Rieve (president, Textile Workers of America) suporting a national system of unemployment insurance; documents regarding state vs. federal control of unemployment insurance; a report by Eleanor Dulles to the Advisory Council on her examination of the social security reserve problem (1957); a study of old age assistance and unemployment insurance in foreign countries; documents concerning state economic security plans in the 1930s; and documents regarding the implementation of social security and actuarial and statistical analyses of the program by various subdivisions of the Social Security Board, private and state agencies.