PROGRAM

Launching its 15^th season of public programming, Roosevelt House is proud to present a unique two-part event to commemorate the 90^th anniversary of the milestone social program conceived right here in our landmark building: Social Security.

Convening leading policymakers, scholars, authors, and advocates, panel discussions on the evenings of September 10^th and 11^th will consider, respectively: the historical significance and stirring story of Social Security’s incubation at Roosevelt House and creation during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term. Then, the following night, you are invited to a second program exploring the crisis threatening the program’s present-day and future viability.

The first discussion, on the birth of social security, will feature presidential historian Jonathan Alter; Social Security scholar Jon C. Dubin of the Rutgers Law School; immediate past board chair of the Frances Perkins Center Sarah Peskin; and, as moderator, former, longtime New York Times reporter Ralph Blumenthal.

The second event, exploring strategies and policy solutions to keep Social Security alive, will feature former Commissioner of Social Security and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley; the author of Fixing Social Security: The Politics of Reform in a Polarized Age, R. Douglas Arnold; Executive Director of Hunter College’s Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging Ruth Finkelstein; cofounder of Social Security Works, Eric Kingson; and, moderating, Roosevelt House Director Harold Holzer.

When President-Elect Roosevelt, in the winter of 1933, offered Frances Perkins the job of Secretary of Labor in a meeting on the second floor of the Roosevelt home at East 65^th Street, her acceptance of the historic appointment came with firm conditions. Before she would agree to become the first woman ever to join a presidential cabinet, Perkins sought Roosevelt’s advance support for initiatives she believed were critical to uplifting Americans out of the Great Depression—among them “old-age insurance,” the program that would become Social Security. Two years later, on August 14, 1935, with Frances Perkins among others at his side, FDR signed the Social Security Act, bringing relief to millions of elderly and disabled Americans, and helping to spur an economic resurgence.

Today, Social Security remains the most vital and universal means of federal support for elderly and disabled Americans and families; and yet, dramatic recent cuts to the program’s operational staff as well as projections of its future insolvency have raised alarm bells around the program’s functional and fiscal sustainability. Among the concerned experts are the Social Security Trustees themselves, whose 2025 report projects that that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund will be depleted by 2033.

Schedule:

 New Roosevelt House Exhibit Opening – The Creation of Social Security

Wednesday, September 10, 5:00 PM

Featuring a selection of archival images, the exhibit explores FDR’s choice of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins to lead the White House Committee on Economic Security in writing the social security legislation; how testimony in Congress helped shape what and who were included—and excluded—in the legislation; the passage of the Social Security Act by bipartisan vote and the technological innovations involved in its implementation.

How Was Social Security Born?

Wednesday, September 10, 6:00 PM

Featuring:

• Jonathan Alter is a columnist, historian, and filmmaker. A former senior editor for Newsweek magazine and political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, Alter is the author of The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, The New Yorker, and the Daily Beast, and also writes the popular Substack newsletter “Old Goats: Ruminating with Friends.” His many Roosevelt House appearances include, most recently, a discussion of his latest book, American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial―and My Own, and a conversation about the results of the 2024 presidential election.
• Jon C. Dubin is the Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor, Distinguished Professor of Law, Paul Robeson Scholar and Director of the Economic Justice and Public Benefits Clinic at Rutgers Law School, where he teaches Social Security law, among other subjects. He has authored or co-authored numerous books on Social Security law, policy, and practice, including the forthcoming The Color of Social Security: Race, Retirement, Disability and Disparity in the Crown Jewel of the Welfare State.
• Sarah Peskin is the immediate past board chair of the Frances Perkins Center, the nonprofit that oversees the preservation and operations of the Frances Perkins National Monument in Newcastle, Maine, and honors the legacy of the first woman member of a presidential cabinet through public and educational programming. An FPC board member since 2009, Peskin spearheaded efforts to secure national monument status for the property, which was the childhood home of Frances Perkins. On December 16, 2024, President Biden officially designated the site as the Frances Perkins National Monument.
• Ralph Blumenthal, moderator, was a New York Times reporter from 1964-2009, covering foreign, national, metro, and culture news. Since then, he has been a Times contributor and Distinguished Lecturer at Baruch College, where he blogs on historic collections in the Library Archives. Those include the files of social scientist and FDR-advisor Luther Halsey Gulick III, with whom President Roosevelt consulted on the creation of Social Security. Blumenthal has appeared in many Roosevelt House programs, most recently a discussion of FDR’s repeal of Prohibition.

How Do We Keep Social Security Alive?

Thursday, September 11, 6:00 PM

Featuring:

• R. Douglas Arnold is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs emeritus at Princeton University and author of the recent book Fixing Social Security: The Politics of Reform in a Polarized Age. A former Guggenheim Fellow, his other books on Social Security include, as co-author, Issues in Privatizing Social Security; and, as co-editor, Framing the Social Security Debate: Values, Politics, and Economics.
• Ruth Finkelstein is the Rose Dobrof Executive Director of the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging at Hunter College, a professor at Hunter’s School of Health Professions, and a member of the Faculty Advisory Committee for the Roosevelt House Public Policy Program. She has also begun grant-funded projects on home sharing, creating policy focused on older workers, and developing a financial exploitation prevention strategy for financial institutions.
• Eric Kingson is former longtime Professor of Social Work at Syracuse University, a founding board member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, and cofounder, with Nancy J. Altman, of Social Security Works, where he serves as its board chair. He is the co-author, also with Altman, of Social Security Works For Everyone!: Protecting and Expanding America’s Most Popular Social Program, among other books on Social Security.
• Hon. Martin O’Malley was appointed by President Biden to serve as Social Security Commissioner in 2023. As Commissioner, O’Malley was responsible for administering the Social Security retirement, disability, and survivors’ insurance programs that pay over $1.4 trillion annually in benefits to more than 66 million beneficiaries. A lifelong public servant, Commissioner O’Malley also served as Governor of Maryland from 2007 to 2015, following two terms as Mayor of the city of Baltimore. He recently launched a new organization dedicated to protecting Social Security called “Win Back Our Country.”
• Harold Holzer, moderator, has served since 2015 as the Jonathan F. Fanton Director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. A prolific author with more than 50 books to his credit, he won the 2015 Gilder Lehrman Prize for his Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion and was awarded a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship. His most recent book is Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration (2024).