Back to the ’50s: Without Social Security

At a time when the U.S. population is rapidly aging, the country cannot afford to go backward to the ‘50s or earlier.

Mar 18, 2025

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

When Donald Trump first shouted his slogan, “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), many thought he meant restoring American culture and politics to conditions prominent during the 1950s. As it turns out, Trump now refers to a cultural, economic, and political world more akin to the First Gilded Age of the 1890s.

Contrary to what Musk or Trump might think, I’m not old enough to remember the 1890s. But I do remember the 1950s. And I can report that many senior citizens and specific population groups had it pretty tough then.

My grandmother, born in 1888, serves as a good example of how people coped with their senior years during the middle of the 20^th century.

At about age 18 or 19, my grandmother married into an agricultural family. Her new husband soon took over a large portion of the family farm, but life in Central Indiana in those days was rugged. All labor was performed by hand or with draft horses. There was no electricity and no indoor plumbing. The first automobile the family owned was a Model T Ford.

Life as a Widow

In 1941 (the year before I was born), my grandfather contracted Hodgkin disease, a form of lymphatic cancer that was a certain death warrant in those days. Within a few months, the family’s chief breadwinner was gone.

That left the operation of the farm in the hands of my father, then 33 and already employed full-time as a mathematics teacher. My father’s sister could not help since she lived in Colorado with her husband who was stationed there as a sergeant in the Army Air Corps. The only viable option was to sell the farm as quickly as practicable.

Fortunately, a family friend and neighbor bought the farm. The price was low (even in 1941, Depression Era prices were still common for agriculture), but the proceeds allowed my grandmother to purchase a modest frame house in Crawfordsville, the county seat. That purchase turned out to be extremely fortunate for her.

Thanks for reading Elder Vibes! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Her new home was located on a tree-lined street about 2 ½ blocks south of Crawfordsville High School. The house had 2 bedrooms with a bath upstairs and featured 3 main rooms – living room, dining room, and kitchen – downstairs. The long front hall opened onto a large front porch. There was also a door from the hall into a 3-room apartment on the north side of the house. The rear of the house overlooked a small back yard and separate one-car garage at the back alley.

My grandmother’s immediate and enduring concern was how to support herself. Other than taking care of a farmhouse, two children, and assorted pets and barnyard animals, she had never worked in any commercial capacity.

Although the Social Security Act had been passed in 1935, farmers and agricultural workers were excluded (as were domestic workers and all government employees). That meant that she was not eligible for any Social Security (SS) death benefits.

My aunt and my father were not in a position to provide much financial help. They certainly did what they could, but my aunt lived only on her husband’s military pay and the pittance that she earned as an elementary teacher. My father was an underpaid schoolteacher. Money for both was very tight.

So, at age 53, my grandmother looked for work. Within a few months, she took a position as a kitchen helper at the high school cafeteria. The pay was low, but steady, at least during fall, winter, and spring months. A major advantage was being able to walk the two blocks to work, and the tasks were those that she already knew how to do. However, because she was technically a government employee, she could still not participate in Social Security.

She also collected rent at a low rate from an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Keller (I never knew their first names since, as a youngster, I was expected to address them formally), who lived in the adjacent downstairs apartment. They became not especially close friends.

After the war ended in 1945, my grandmother rented one of the upstairs bedrooms to students from Wabash College whose campus was about three blocks west. Since my father had graduated from Wabash, she already knew some administrators and faculty who could recommend suitable tenants. She laundered their bedding (in a wringer washing machine in the basement, while drying everything on a backyard clothesline) and provided some basic cleaning, but did not prepare meals for them.

The students loved living there. It was quiet, clean, and within easy walking distance from the campus. Some later became physicians or attorneys and often remained in touch with her, inviting her to their weddings and other family events.

Finally, after 1955 when agricultural workers were covered by SS, she received a very small monthly death benefit and, later, a retirement stipend for the few years that she worked at her government-supported job in the cafeteria. My father and his sister continued to help as they could.

For her entire life, my grandmother lived very frugally. She kept a 1938 midnight blue Plymouth sedan in the garage, driving it only occasionally to church in bad weather. She never ate at a restaurant unless one of her children treated her. I remember many wonderful holiday dinners – all cooked and served at her home.

During the early 1950s, my aunt and uncle took my grandmother to Colorado to show her where they lived during World War II and to meet some of their friends. A couple of years later, my father and mother invited her to join us for a week after school was out on Florida’s west coast. That was the extent of her travel beyond visiting family in Indiana.

Illness and Death

During the late 1950s, my grandmother reported that she was not feeling well. Eventually, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma that was considered progressive and inevitably fatal at the time. It affected her entire body and produced tumors in her abdomen causing great pain. Her physician could do little more than prescribe pain medication to mitigate suffering.

Since she had been a long-time patient, he considered her a friend. He began making regular home visits (free of charge, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to pay him) to keep things under control.

During the fall of 1959, he met with my parents, my aunt and uncle, and me to discuss my grandmother’s situation. After explaining the gravity of her condition, he urged us not to tell her the diagnosis or that she was likely to die. (In those days, medical professionals typically withheld such information from patients on the theory that revealing prognoses would cause patients to give up.)

After about two years of agony, my grandmother died at home in January 1960, a few months before I graduated from high school. She was 71 years old. The Methodist Church that she had attended every Sunday since moving to Crawfordsville was packed for her funeral. (I had the privilege of directing the choir there during my final two years at Wabash College.)

Concluding Observations

While I miss my grandmother to this day, I have provided details of her life to help illustrate the plight that many elderly citizens of our own time might face without a social safety net.

My grandmother lived a very modest existence, always worrying about making ends meet. Imagine if she had faced the following conditions:

Inability to afford her own home
Lack of any rental income, however modest
Lack of any Social Security benefits
Inability to find work within walking distance
Having no family to help with unforeseen expenses
Lack of access to a physician who cared enough to make free home visits

Except for her meager SS benefits (about $100/month), there was no social safety net for her. She could have easily fallen into the category of “elder orphan” about which I’ve written earlier. (In fact, I could easily fall into that category myself, especially if my SS payments cease.)

Many elderly citizens find themselves in dire circumstances today. As I have written previously, of approximately 71 million recipients of retirement benefits, about 25 million are cost-burdened, meaning that they spend more than one-third of their income on housing.

Others can report on how effective SS programs are for tens of millions of people. SS is not a Ponzi scheme. It is remarkably efficient and reliable, and it keeps many from suffering homelessness and abject poverty. For a good summary, see Paul Krugman, “The Clean Little Secret of Social Security.”

WARNING! If the Trump/Musk regime succeeds in destroying key programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the consequences for millions of senior citizens in the United States will be unspeakably devastating. At a time when the U.S. population is rapidly aging (the Boomers are now entering their 80s), the country cannot afford to go backward to the ‘50s or earlier.

What do you think should be done?

Elder Vibes