[172] It pumped sums equal to 2% of the GDP into the consumer economy and had a major stimulus effect.[173]

Second New Deal (1935–1936)
Main article: Second New Deal
Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law, August 14, 1935
Roosevelt expected that his party would lose seats in the 1934 Congressional elections, as the president's party had done in most previous midterm elections. Unexpectedly the Democrats picked up seats in both houses of Congress. Empowered by the public's vote of confidence, the first item on Roosevelt's agenda in the 74th Congress was the creation of a social insurance program.[174] The Social Security Act established Social Security and promised economic security for the elderly, the poor, and the sick. Roosevelt insisted that it should be funded by payroll taxes rather than from the general fund, saying, "We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program."[175] Compared with the social security systems in western European countries, the Social Security Act of 1935 was rather conservative. 