Final answer:
The Social Security Act aimed to provide financial security to the elderly, unemployed workers, and impoverished families. It established pensions for retired workers, unemployment insurance, and financial aid for families and injured workers, financed through payroll taxes.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Social Security Act, instituted in 1935 as a key part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, targeted providing financial security to various groups within American society that were hard hit by the effects of the Great Depression. Its primary goals included offering old-age pensions to retired workers and their dependents, setting up a system for unemployment insurance, and establishing direct aid for impoverished families with children, including a system of financial compensation for injured workers.
In response to the dire circumstances in which elderly Americans found themselves, the old-age pension aspect of the Social Security Act was designed to ensure that individuals over the age of 65 could receive a monthly retirement benefit, facilitating retirement without becoming burdens on their families. The Roosevelt administration also recognized the need for other social safety nets and, therefore, included provisions for unemployment insurance and assistance to vulnerable families in the Act's framework. These were financed through payroll taxes paid by employers and employees.
The introduction of the Social Security system meant not only direct financial aid to alleviate immediate hardship but also a structural change in the social fabric of the United States, laying the groundwork for the modern welfare state and significantly reducing the rate of poverty among the nation's elderly population.