January 31, 1940 - The First Check

Ida May Fuller woke before sunrise, the pale Vermont winter light stretching across her small bedroom in Ludlow. She wrapped her shawl around her shoulders, the same one she’d worn during her thirty-five years of teaching, and shuffled toward the kitchen where the kettle began to hiss.

Today was the day.

She had no children. No husband. No one to share the small wooden table but the ticking clock and the stack of letters addressed in her delicate handwriting. But for the first time in her 65 years, she felt the faint hum of something new — security.

A knock came at the door.

She opened it to find Mr. William Collins, the postman, cheeks pink from the cold and eyes bright.

“Morning, Miss Fuller,” he said, stamping snow from his boots. “Got something historic for you.”

Ida blinked. “Historic?”

He held out a long white envelope. “Straight from Washington. Says here it’s the first of its kind.”

Ida’s heart tapped faster. “Oh my.”

She led him inside, hands trembling slightly. The kettle whistled louder as she slit open the envelope with a butter knife. Inside sat a check — her check — marked Check No. 00-000-001 for $22.54.

Her breath caught.

“So it’s true,” she whispered. “This new Social Security program… they didn’t forget the people who worked their whole lives.”

Mr. Collins grinned. “You’re the first one in the whole country to receive a monthly payment. Folks down at the post office are talking about it like you’re some kind of celebrity.”

Ida laughed, a warm, surprised sound. “Imagine that. Ida May Fuller — celebrity of old age.”

He sat his cap on the table. “How does it feel? Knowing the whole nation’s watching this new program?”

Ida studied the check again. “Feels… hopeful,” she said slowly. “I paid into this fund for three years after they started collecting contributions. Never expected much back. Thought it was more for the generations after mine. But this—” She tapped the check gently. “This says someone in Washington believes our older years shouldn’t be spent begging or worrying.”

Mr. Collins nodded. “It’s a new era, Miss Fuller. My dad always said people got thrown away after they stopped working. Maybe this time we’re doing something right.”

Ida folded the check with a soft smile. “When I was a young teacher, I used to tell my students the country grows with them. But maybe,” she said, voice warm, “it grows with all of us — young and old.”

“Will you frame it?” he teased.

“Goodness no,” she chuckled. “I’ll cash it. But I’ll remember it forever.”

Mr. Collins stood and tipped his hat. “Congratulations, Miss Fuller. You’ve made history.”

After he left, Ida stepped to the window, watching snowflakes drift lazily onto the quiet Vermont street. She pressed the check to her chest and exhaled, a long, grateful breath.

For the first time in her life, the future didn't seem like a burden.

It felt like a promise.

Ida placed the check gently on her writing desk beside the thick booklet she had received years earlier, explaining the new program President Roosevelt signed into law in 1935. She remembered the skepticism among her neighbors back then.

Many worried that the government was overreaching. Others feared it would never work — that the Great Depression had drained the nation beyond repair. But Ida, practical and steady, had simply gone to the local Social Security office in nearby Rutland and filled out the forms.

She remembered the clerk explaining how the contributions worked — tiny deductions taken from paychecks, money set aside not for charity, but as a right earned through labor. It had sounded revolutionary.

She thought back to her teaching days in the 1890s and early 1900s, when old age simply meant hardship unless family stepped in. She had seen elderly women forced to move in with distant cousins, men begging former employers for leftover errands, widows scraping by on church donations.

A nation could industrialize, modernize, and electrify — yet still leave its older citizens forgotten in the shadows.

But not anymore.

Ida pulled on her coat and stepped outside into the crisp January air. The streets of Ludlow were quiet, just a few shopkeepers sweeping snow from their steps. As she walked toward the bank, she passed the Barber & Sons shop where two men were discussing President Roosevelt’s “New Deal.”

“I heard thousands more checks go out next month,” one said. “Imagine—old folks finally getting steady help.”

“About time,” the other replied. “My mother worked herself half to death in the mills. Could’ve used something like this.”

Ida smiled softly as she walked past. It reminded her that her check was more than a personal milestone — it was the beginning of a national shift.

Inside the bank, the teller, Miss Harriet Greene, gasped. “Miss Fuller! We heard you’d be coming today. Let me see it!”

Ida handed over the check, and Harriet held it delicately, as though it were a rare artifact. “This is history,” she murmured. “You’re the very first monthly beneficiary in the United States.”

Ida blushed. “I suppose someone had to be first.”

Harriet processed the check, then leaned closer. “Do you know they say you paid in only twenty-four dollars and seventy-five cents, and you’ll receive far more back?”

“So I’ve been told,” Ida replied with a small, proud smile. “It seems the country takes care of its own now.”

As she left the bank, she heard a radio playing inside a nearby shop, reporting on Social Security’s early progress — millions registered, thousands preparing for retirement, the government predicting stability for the elderly on a scale the nation had never seen.

Walking home slowly, Ida realized the weight of what she carried — not just the money, but the proof that America was changing. That workers like her, who had spent decades shaping young minds and contributing quietly to society, would not be left behind.

She reached her porch, paused, and looked back toward town.

“Here’s to the years ahead,” she whispered to herself — not with fear, but with gratitude.

For the first time in U.S. history, old age came with dignity.

And Ida May Fuller, with Check No. 00-000-001, had become the living symbol of that promise.

Historical Synopsis

On January 31, 1940, the U.S. government issued the first monthly Social Security retirement benefit check as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Social Security Act of 1935. The recipient was Ida May Fuller, a retired legal secretary and former schoolteacher from Ludlow, Vermont. Fuller had paid into the Social Security system for only three years—contributing a total of $24.75—before retiring in 1939. Her first monthly benefit check was for $22.54, nearly the value of all she had paid in.

The issuance of Fuller’s check marked a major turning point in American social policy. It represented the beginning of a nationwide old-age insurance system, designed to prevent poverty among the elderly after the profound hardships of the Great Depression. Fuller would go on to collect Social Security benefits for 35 years, living to the age of 100 and receiving a total of more than $22,000, demonstrating the enduring structure and long-term effectiveness of the system.

The first Social Security check symbolized the federal government’s new role in promoting economic security and marked the start of one of the largest and most influential social programs in U.S. history.

^{This story is based on documented historical records and contemporaneous accounts}

Works Cited

Social Security Administration. “Ida May Fuller: First Social Security Beneficiary.” SSA Historical Archives, https://www.ssa.gov/history/idapayments.html.

Social Security Administration. “Social Security Act of 1935.” SSA Historical Background, https://www.ssa.gov/history/35ac.html.

U.S. National Archives. “America’s First Social Security Check.” National Archives Blogs, 31 Jan. 2014, https://www.archives.gov.