Letter to the Nation's First Social Security Beneficiary Informing Her of Increased Benefits.
[Released September 6, 1965. Dated September 3, 1965] Dear Miss Fuller:
My best wishes to you on your 91st birthday.
Since you became the first Social Security beneficiary in January, 1940, the size of the program--and of the more than 300 monthly checks you have received--has grown steadily. That growth means increased well-being for older people, widows and orphans everywhere in the Nation.
On July 30, I had the pleasure of signing an act which increased monthly benefits by seven per cent. As a major new advance, it added health insurance protection for the aging to the social security law.
This increase is retroactive to January-and so this month you are receiving an extra social security check for the amount of the increase due you for the months of January through August.
I am happy that you can receive this "bonus" check on your birthday; I hope that you receive it--and many others--in good health.
With kindest regards,
Sincerely,
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
[Miss Ida Fuller, 33 Pleasant Street, Ludlow, Vermont]
Note: On September 6 the White House announced that Raymond E. Bender, Social Security District Manager in Rutland, Vt., had that day delivered to Miss Fuller a check for the retroactive increase in her social security benefits. The release stated that retroactive checks would be mailed to 20 million other social security beneficiaries beginning September 15, and that the amount paid out would total $885 million.
For the President's remarks upon signing the Social Security Amendments of 1965, see Item 394.
The letter was released at Austin, Tex.
Lyndon B. Johnson, Letter to the Nation's First Social Security Beneficiary Informing Her of Increased Benefits. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/240632