I don't know how old my father was when the Social Security Administration considered him disabled and granted him benefits. He died in 1997 and, had he lived, would be nearly 100 years old now. I don't remember when he had his first heart attack. I was just a baby. Growing up, I do remember my mother telling stories about trying to care for six children with her husband in the hospital for weeks. She was scared – wondering how she might provide for the family with only an eighth grade education, should my father not survive. My father survived and was able to return to farming for a few more years. My mother, still worrying about my father's health, got a job doing about the only thing she knew that would give her a paycheck – cooking in restaurants, schools and nursing homes. My family's story is perhaps a bit different than most in that the older my parents got, the more financially insecure they became. Growing up during the Great Depression, they knew how to scrimp to get by. Farming put food on the table and a roof over all of our heads, but there was more to go around when the family was smaller. With every additional child, there was a bit less. When my father could no longer work, and with my mom working at jobs that paid little more than minimum wage, and four children still at home, we relied on Social Security benefits. Still, our family fell into poverty. Money always seemed to run out before the month did. It wasn't unusual, on those last days of the month, for dinner to consist of saltine crackers crumbled into a glass of milk. Nights would find my mother sitting at the kitchen table prioritizing the bills that could be paid immediately and which ones would have to wait until the Social Security check arrived, usually on the third day of every month. My parents worried about money all of the time. My siblings and I all got jobs as soon as we could to help out financially. Some of my sisters began working at 13 – others at 15 or 16. Social Security benefits helped me to get a college degree – the first person in my family to do so. More than 40 years after my father first collected benefits, my sisters and I are all still working and contributing to a Social Security system that one day we will benefit from again. In the meantime, we are part of a cash flow process that others benefit from now. Government programs are criticized all of the time. Abuse of the system is always cited as a reason to weaken or eliminate programs. But oftentimes, these programs work as they were intended to when they were first created. They provide a safety net that keep families functioning and allows future generation to achieve more of the American dream than previous generations did. I don't know what would have happened to my family without those monthly checks. A legislative decision, enacted 75 years ago, made a profound difference in my life. We should strive to make decisions today that will have a similar positive impact on the lives of Americans 75 years into the future.