Townsend Plan

[1] The movement demonstrated nationwide demand for old-age pensions, leading Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to adopt a national Social Security policy, though Townsend's original plan called for greater benefits to a greater number of people than Social Security provided.

[1][2][3] According to Townsend's 1943 memoir, his plan originated when he saw two old women, dressed in once-nice, tattered clothes, picking through his garbage cans looking for food.

[1][4] According to Townsend, the pension was intended to decrease labor supply and competition by removing the aged from the workforce and would increase spending to stimulate economic recovery from the Depression.

"[4] In January 1934, Townsend, his brother Walter, and his former employer, real estate agent Robert E. Clements, established Old Age Revolving Pensions, Ltd.

[1] Though no additional charges were brought, the investigation revealed that the Townsend National Weekly was a for-profit publication and enormous commissions were given to some state organizers and Clements, who personally received upwards of $70,000 ($1.54 million in 2023).

[1] In January 1935, Representative John S. McGroarty of California proposed the OARP plan as a bill before Congress.

Congress can't stand the pressure of the Townsend Plan unless we have a real old-age insurance system."