CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - THE FEDERAL-STATE SYSTEM OF UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION UNDER THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT

Authors

Elbert R. Gilliom, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

One of the last pieces of New Deal social legislation to receive the judicial sanction of the United States Supreme Court before the end of its epoch-making October 1936 term is the tax imposed on employers of eight or more by Title IX of the Social Security Act of 1935. Through the operation of eleven expressly separable "titles," the comprehensive act (1) authorizes future appropriations to the states for old-age assistance, unemployment compensation administration, aid to dependent children, maternal and child welfare, services for crippled children, public health work, and aid to the blind; (2) establishes a system of federal old-age benefits; (3) creates the Social Security Board; and (4) imposes an income tax on wage-earners, an excise tax on employers, and an additional excise tax on employers of eight or more. The federal-state system of unemployment compensation achieved through operation of titles III and IX is a vital element of this program, devised in an effort to avoid in the future the extremes of hardship and suffering experienced in the recent economic depression by those dependent on unemployed wage-earners.

Recommended Citation

Elbert R. Gilliom, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - THE FEDERAL-STATE SYSTEM OF UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION UNDER THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT, 35 Mich. L. Rev. 1306 (1937).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol35/iss8/6