The Social Securities laws of the U.S. were initially passed to provide for the economic problems and hardships created by the Great Depression. This law for Social Securities, passed through the 1935 Social Security Act and subsequently subjected to numerous amendments, has been maintained up to the present for providing financial benefits to various groups of people found to be in need of support in addition to that which can be returned from their own efforts.
As such, Social Securities laws can be used to provide benefits for senior citizens who have retired from the workforce, people who are suffering from some form of disability which reduces their ability to provide for themselves, or have survived the death of some other individual on whom they were dependent. Survivors’ benefits, for instance, can be provided through the law for Social Securities to the spouses of people who were themselves eligible for Social Security and had died.