Social Security was signed into law by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s to guarantee workers and their families an income if they retire, become disabled, or if a breadwinner dies. At the time, Republicans and conservative Democratic lawmakers disparaged the legislation as “socialist,” and the American Bar Association and US Chamber of Commerce decried it as an attempt to “Sovietize the country.”

Today, Social Security plays a major role in safeguarding tens of millions of people from destitution — not just people over the age of sixty-five, but millions of children too. It is by far the most significant anti-poverty program in the country. Which is why Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has introduced the “Social Security Expansion Act” to expand Social Security by requiring the wealthy to contribute more equitably to our public retirement system and preventing them from exploiting it for personal gain.

Over the last thirty years, skyrocketing inequality has threatened Social Security’s survival. The wealthiest have captured an increasing share of income gains above the taxable earnings cap, while workers’ wages have flat-lined. This trend has shrunk the share of national wages being taxed to fund Social Security. That’s why the program’s “total cost is projected to exceed its total income (including interest) in 2018 for the first time since 1982,” according to Social Security’s Board of Trustees.