...this passage in Paul Krugman's column from this past Friday's edition of the New York Times:

For the fact is that F.D.R. faced fierce opposition as he created the institutions — Social Security, unemployment insurance, more progressive taxation and beyond — that helped alleviate inequality.

Did Franklin Roosevelt "create" unemployment insurance? His administration did champion legislation that created government-provided unemployment insurance. But Mr. Roosevelt emphatically did not create such insurance. Here's a letter that I sent to the Times in response:

Paul Krugman mistakenly credits Franklin Roosevelt with having "created" unemployment insurance ("On Being Partisan," Jan. 26).

Private unemployment insurance was offered long before the New Deal. As Professor Michael Rappaport found, starting around 1910 companies began selling such insurance to railroad workers. Alas, seeking to offer such coverage to other workers, private insurers were consistently blocked by state governments. And when New York's legislature in 1931 finally approved the expansion of private unemployment insurance, the bill was vetoed by none other than Gov. Franklin Roosevelt.