The Railroad Retirement Board Building was first proposed in 1938 as part of a massive federal construction effort in the District of Columbia and around the country.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the construction projects both as a way of providing employment to the millions of Americans out of work due to the Great Depression but also as a means of meeting the office space needs of the rapidly expanding federal government.

The committee was chaired by United States Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, and included Senator Elmer Thomas (D-Oklahoma); Representative Ross A. Collins (D-Mississippi); Rear Admiral Christian J.

Peoples, United States Navy; and Frederic A. Delano, chair of the National Capital Parks and Planning Commission.

[7] On July 28, 1938, Simon and Klauder presented their design for the two structures to the United States Commission of Fine Arts, which had the authority to review all new public buildings erected in the District of Columbia.

[9] Klauder designed back-to-back buildings, with the Social Security structure facing Independence Avenue SW and the Railroad Retirement building facing C Street SW. Because of the need to provide a great deal of interior light via windows, Klauder proposed a "fishbone" structure: A long central corridor from which five short, narrow wings projected on both the north and south sides.

Pilasters 46 feet (14 m) high topped by non-load bearing lintels would help screen the bays created by the wings.

The District's building boom was driven in great part by the needs of the United States Department of War, which was adding tens of thousands of workers.

But most military officers and upper-level civilian workers lived in Northwest Washington and the Virginia counties across the Potomac River from it.

Because workers for the Social Security Administration and the Railroad Retirement Board were low-wage workers without an urgent need to get to their jobs in a timely fashion, the Social Security and Railroad Retirement Board buildings were deliberately sited in Southwest Washington.

Both the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) agreed not to strike contractors working on the two buildings.

[18] However, by June 1940, the space shortage affecting the War Department was so acute that PWA officials began speeding up construction on the Railroad Retirement Board Building.

[18] These rumors proved true on June 20, 1940, when the PWA announced that the War Department was now slated to occupy both structures.

[19] Agencies scheduled to take up residency in the two buildings included the National Defense Advisory Commission[12] (an informal body established in June 1940 to promote the conversion of industry to a wartime footing),[22] the Army Quartermaster Corps,[23] the Army Corps of Engineers,[24] and other War Department units.

On July 4, 1940, 43-year-old construction worker Roy Trowbridge suffered a fractured spine when scaffolding he was standing on gave way and he fell four stories to the ground.

The first strike occurred when 250 workers at the Smoot Sand & Gravel walked out to protest a job classification by the federal Wage and Hour Division.

The strike began on July 9, lasted five days, and idled more than 6,500 workers (including those working on the Social Security and Railroad Retirement Board buildings) as no concrete could be delivered.

[20] The strike ended on July 19 after both labor unions agreed to allow the Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) of the AFL to arbitrate the dispute.

This jurisdictional strike involved 180 plasterers and cement finishers, who walked off the job in a dispute over who would install more than 750,000 square feet (70,000 m2) of acoustic ceiling tile.

[31] The strike ended on August 8 after a special representative from National Defense Advisory Commissioner Sidney Hillman also intervened.

[24] After the end of World War II, the Railroad Retirement Board Building was turned over to the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

The United States Department of Education took up 60 percent of its space, while the United States Department of Health and Human Services had 30 percent and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (the body which governs the Voice of America and other U.S. government broadcasting bodies) had the remainder.

[40] In April 2014, the General Services Administration said it would spend $10.38 million to renovate the Switzer Building into open workspace.

[41] The agencies scheduled to move into the Switzer building after the renovation are the Administration for Children and Families, the Administration for Community Living, the Departmental Appeals Board, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.