In a recent press release from IBM Watson Health, they discuss the importance of health and human services programs in the United States.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his intention to create the Social Security program on 8 June 1934, it was not the first time that a government had formed a social insurance program designed to pay retired workers a continuing income after retirement.Germany, the United Kingdom and other countries were years ahead of the United States in that regard. When the act was finally implemented, it created the world’s biggest bookkeeping job. Social Security Numbers needed to be issued to 26 million American workers and that an additional 3.5 million Employer Identification Numbers needed to also be created. A French industrial expert who was hired to advise the government concluded that: “It can’t be done. The government should abandon the whole idea.”
US Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins recalled the day she concluded that the experts were wrong; that it could be done. It was the day that First Assistant Secretary of Labor Arthur Altmeyer walked into her office and reported, “You know, I think we found it. These new IBM machines, I believe they can do it.” Altmeyer was talking about the IBM 07 7 Collator which could process 600,000 old-age pension accounts a day. And when the United States’ first monthly Social Security benefit check was sent, it was printed on an IBM punch card.
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