Last summer, I visited the FDR National Historic Site in Hyde Park and took a few hours to go through (very slowly, reading everything) the exhibit on Black Americans, Civil Rights, and the Roosevelts, 1932-1962. I didn’t know that in order to get the Social Security Act passed by the Congress (controlled by Southern Democrats), the bill excluded farm workers and domestic workers (roughly half of American workers at that time), both categories that (then and now) skewed heavily towards Black Americans and other non-white Americans. Another white privilege I didn’t realize I had. You can read more on the SSA website: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html#:~:text=The%20Social%20Security%20Act%20of,of%20whom%20were%20African%20Americans.
And while the SSA article concludes it was not racist in excluding those workers, the FDR exhibit (curated in collaboration with many Black scholars) disagreed in its analysis of the situation. Unfortunately, that exhibit isn’t online in its full form (I so wish it was).
Annie - thank you for bringing this up. I wanted to tackle it in my post but figured I'd need to make the post twice as long to do the topic justice - so decided to cover it in a separate post in the future. As I reflect back on that decision now, I still should have mentioned which categories of workers were left out and who that meant - even if I said I'd cover it in more depth in a future post. I'll make that edit.
Everyday we should count our blessings from where we were to where we’ve come. However as your writing shows there are many people still suffering and struggling to make a decent living.
It is still a struggle for those earning a minimum wage to rise above poverty.
Thank you for writing this and opening up ideas for new discussions.
Last summer, I visited the FDR National Historic Site in Hyde Park and took a few hours to go through (very slowly, reading everything) the exhibit on Black Americans, Civil Rights, and the Roosevelts, 1932-1962. I didn’t know that in order to get the Social Security Act passed by the Congress (controlled by Southern Democrats), the bill excluded farm workers and domestic workers (roughly half of American workers at that time), both categories that (then and now) skewed heavily towards Black Americans and other non-white Americans. Another white privilege I didn’t realize I had. You can read more on the SSA website: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html#:~:text=The%20Social%20Security%20Act%20of,of%20whom%20were%20African%20Americans.
And while the SSA article concludes it was not racist in excluding those workers, the FDR exhibit (curated in collaboration with many Black scholars) disagreed in its analysis of the situation. Unfortunately, that exhibit isn’t online in its full form (I so wish it was).
Annie - thank you for bringing this up. I wanted to tackle it in my post but figured I'd need to make the post twice as long to do the topic justice - so decided to cover it in a separate post in the future. As I reflect back on that decision now, I still should have mentioned which categories of workers were left out and who that meant - even if I said I'd cover it in more depth in a future post. I'll make that edit.
Everyday we should count our blessings from where we were to where we’ve come. However as your writing shows there are many people still suffering and struggling to make a decent living.
It is still a struggle for those earning a minimum wage to rise above poverty.
Thank you for writing this and opening up ideas for new discussions.