North America’s Divide - The Political Geography of Inequality - page 125

First, benefits were no longer at a flat rate, but graded according to previous
earnings. Second, a bigger effort was made in terms of coverage (75%of
the labor force), eligibility (the qualifying period drops from forty to thirty
weeks) and duration. Nonetheless, seasonal agriculture, forestry and fishing
workers remained excluded, treated only under assistance policies still guided
by the “less eligibility” principle and with no national minimum. Following the
Rowell-Siros Report, the full cost of the latter was finally assumed by Ottawa.
The report, however, did suggest a centralization of taxation and the design
of an inter-provincial system of revenue sharing so that the average provincial
cost of relief would be equalized in the end.
The United States: The Continuity of State Autonomy. Roosevelt approached
the issue of insurance under very different circumstances, determined by a much
more heterogeneous set of state actors and the absence of large levels of mobil-
ity from 1929 onward. Therefore, he was cautions in his strategy. His efforts
on unemployment and old age relief allowed him some time to carefully design
longer term measures to handle the various dimensions of “economic instabil-
ity.” In his own words, “the federal government, of course, does have to prevent
anyone from starving, but the federal government should not be called upon
to exercise the duty until all other agencies fail. The primary duty is that of the
locality, the city, county, town. If they should fail and cannot raise enough to
meet the needs the next responsibility is on the states and they have to do all they
can. If it is still proven that they cannot do any more and the funds are still insuf-
ficient, it is the duty of the federal government to step in” ( New York Times ,
May 23, 1933; cfrd. Singleton 2000 : 108). The latter was indeed the case. Roo-
sevelt's action on this matter was much quicker and less reluctant than that of
his Canadian counterparts. Right after taking office he introduced the Federal
Relief Emergency Act, “appropriating $500 million to the States” (Singleton
2000 : 102-110). In so doing he responded “to the plight of the unemployed
and to the non inconsiderable protests of state and local welfare officials, whose
agencies were overwhelmed financially by the proportion of the need produced
by the crisis” (Orloff 1988 : 69). At the same time, however, Roosevelt was
well aware of the political objections of many state governors and business-
men against any attempt to impose from above a national program of social
insurance.
By 1934 the social consequences of the Depression were most pressing, but,
as analyzed previously, so were pressures against excessive federal intervention
by businesses and a significant number of states. To balance these two opposing
forces, Roosevelt appointed the Committee on Economic Security to study,
among other social security issues, the problem of unemployment. The history
of America's response to unemployment runs from this point, the Committee's
report, through to the final approval of the Social Security Act. The contentious
drafting process and numerous inputs at different points along the way help
to explain why in the end, facing as “national” a problem as Canada, it is