The New Deal: Supreme Court Cases

HELVERING et. al. v. DAVIS

301 U. S. 619

May 24, 1937

CARDOZO, J.  The Social Security Act is challenged once again.

In this case Titles VIII and II are the subject of attack.  Title VIII lays a special income tax upon employees to be deducted from their wages and paid by the employers. Title II provides for the payment of Old Age benefits, and supplies the motive and occasion, in the view of the assailants of the statute, for the levy of the taxes imposed by Title VIII.

Second: The scheme of benefits created by, the provisions of Title II is not in contravention of the limitations of the TenthAmendment.

Congress may spend money in aid of the, "general welfare.”  Constitution, Art. I, Section 8; United States v. Butler, 297 U. S. 1; Steward Machine Co. v. Davis.  There havebeen great statesmen in our history who have stood for other views.  We will not resurrect the contest.  It is now settled by the decision in United States v. Butler.  The conception of the spending power advocated by Hamilton veiled over that of Madison, which has not been lacking in adherents.  Yet difficulties are left when the power is conceded.  The line must still be drawn between one welfare and another, between particular and general.  Where this shall be placed cannot be known through a formula in advance of the event.  There is a middle ground or certainly a penumbra in which discretion is at large.  The discretion, however, is not confided to the courts.  The discretion belongs to Congress unless the choice is clearly wrong, a display of arbitrary power, not an exercise of judgment.  This is now familiar law.  "When such a contention comes here we naturally require a showing that by no reasonable possibility can the challenged legislation fall within the wide range of discretion permitted to the Congress”  United States v. Butler, supra, p. 67.  Nor is the concept of the general welfare static.  Needs that were narrow or parochial a century ago may be interwoven in our day with the well-being of the nation.  What is critical or urgent changes with the times.

The purge of nation-wide calamity that began in 1929 has taught us many lessons.  Not the least is the solidarity of interests that may once have seemed to be divided.  Unemployment spreads from state to state, the hinterland now settled that in pioneer days gave an avenue of escape.  Spreading from state to state, unemployment is an ill not particular but general, which may be checked, if Congress so determines, by the resources of the nation.  If this can have been doubtful until now, our ruling today in the case of the Steward Machine Co. has set the doubt at greatly different whether men are thrown out of work because there is no longer work to do or because the disabilities of age make them incapable of doing it.  Rescue becomes necessary irrespective of the cause.  The hope behind this statute is to save men and women from the rigors of the poor house as well as from the haunting fear that such a lot awaits them when journey's end is near.

Congress did not improvise a judgment when it found that the award of old age benefits would be conducive to the general welfare.  The President's Committee on Economic Security made an investigation and report, aided by a research staff of Government officers and employees, and by an Advisory Council and seven other advisory groups.  Extensive hearings followed before the House Committee on Ways and Means, and the Senate Committee on Finance.  A great mass of evidence was brought together supporting the policy which finds expression in the act.  Among the relevant facts are these:  The number of persons in the United States 65 years of age or over is increasing proportionately as well as absolutely.  What is even more important the number of such persons unable to take care of themselves is growing at a threatening pace.  More and more our population is becoming urban and industrial instead of rural and agricultural.  The evidence is impressive that among industrial workers the younger men and women are preferred over the older.  In time of retrenchment the older are commonly the first to go, and even if retained, their wages are likely to be lowered.  The plight of men and women at so low an age as 40 is hard, almost hopeless, when they are driven to seek for reemployment.  Statistics are in the brief.  A few illustrations will be chosen from many there collected.  In 1930, out of 224 American factories investigated, 71, or almost one third, had fixed maximum hiring age limits; in 4 plants the limit was under 40; in 41 it was under 46.  In the other 153 plants there were no fixed limits, but in practice few were hired if they were over 50 years of age.  With the loss of savings inevitable in periods of idleness, the fate of workers over 65, when thrown out of work, is little less than desperate.  A recent study of the Social Security Board informs us that "one-fifth of the aged in the United States were receiving old-age assistance, emergency relief, institutional care, employment under the works program, or some other form of aid from public or private funds; two-fifths to one-half were dependent on friends and relatives, one-eighth had some income from earnings; and possibly one-sixth had some savings or property.  Approximately three out of four persons 65 or over were probably dependent wholly or partially on others for support.”  We summarize in the margin the results of other studies by state and national commissions.  They point the same way.

The problem is plainly national in area and dimensions.  Moreover, laws of the separate states cannot deal with it effectively.  Congress, at least, had a basis for that belief.  States and local governments are often lacking in the resources that are necessary to finance an adequate program of security for the aged.  This is brought out with a wealth of illustration in recent studies of the problem.  Apart from the failure of resources, states and local governments are at times reluctant to increase so heavily the burden of taxation to be borne by their residents for fear of placing themselves in a position of economic disadvantage as compared with neighbors or competitors.  We have seen this in our study of the problem of unemployment compensation.  Steward Machine Co. v. Davis.  A system of old age pensions has special dangers of its own, if put in force in one state and rejected in another.  The existence of such a system is a bait to the needy and dependent elsewhere, encouraging them to migrate and seek a haven of repose.  Only a power that is national can serve the interests of all.

Whether wisdom or unwisdom resides in the scheme of benefits set forth in Title II, it is not for us to say.  The answer to such inquiries must come from Congress, not the courts.  Our concern here as often is with power, not with wisdom.  Counsel for respondent has recalled to us the virtues of self-reliance and frugality.  There is a possibility he says, that aid from a paternal government may sap those sturdy virtues and breed a race of weaklings.  If Massachusetts so believes and shapes her laws in that conviction, must her breed of sons be changed, he asks because some other philosophy of government finds favor in the halls of Congress?  But the answer is not doubtful.  One might ask with equal reason whether the system of protective tariffs is to be set aside at will in one state or another whenever local policy prefers the rule of laissez faire.  The issue is a closed one.  It was fought out long ago.  When money is spent to promote the general welfare, the concept of welfare or the opposite is shaped by Congress, not the states.  So the concept be not arbitrary, the locality must yield.  Constitution, Art. VI, Par. 2.

Ordered accordingly.