Katherine Sullivan

They organized massive letter-writing campaigns to members of Congress and even set up trial versions of the program.

The movement put enormous pressure on lawmakers to create some sort of safety net for older people.

And the pressure worked.

In 1935, President Roosevelt signed Social Security into law.

This Social Security measure...

gives at least some protection to 30 millions of our citizens who will reap direct benefits through unemployment compensation, through old age pensions, and through increased services for the protection of children and the prevention of ill health.

Social security, then as now, is largely financed through payroll taxes and is paid out to eligible workers based on their years of highest earned income.

Average monthly payments for early Social Security recipients were only about $23, a far cry from Townsend's vision.

But the passage of the program took the steam out of the Townsend movement.

Its clubs across the country eventually closed their doors, and Social Security became, and still is, the largest anti-poverty program in the nation's history.

It also became the first leg of Americans' retirement stool.

Under the Social Security Act, most American families are now able to insure for themselves an income that is guaranteed for life.

It's an income provided not by charity or relief, but by federal old age and survivors insurance.

At the same time, more and more corporations started offering employees pensions, also known as defined benefit plans, thanks largely to the work of labor unions.

Growing numbers of American workers added the second leg to their retirement stool, the pension.

But there were problems on the horizon that would disrupt the nascent retirement system.

After the break, the stool starts to wobble.

In 1963, car manufacturer Studebaker went bankrupt and canceled its pension plan for thousands of workers who had been counting on it.

And it wasn't just Studebaker that was failing its pensioners.

By 1965, over 4,000 pension plans had been terminated over the previous decade, leaving 20,000 workers per year in a lurch.