It's Up to You, a Social Security Board notice for servicemen

It's up to you to protect your job insurance benefits is a Social Security Board notice for men in military service, catalogued at 1941. It tells them to get a card from the company clerk, fill it in and return it, because laws "are being proposed in most States" to protect their unemployment benefit rights (NAID 514661).

An instruction sheet in a big red word

The design is one large red "YOU" with "IT'S UP TO" printed over it. Under that are instructions, and at lower right a sample of the card the reader is told to fill in. The FRAME catalog lists the audience as "Own forces": the notice is addressed to soldiers.

IT'S UP TO YOU

TO PROTECT YOUR JOB INSURANCE BENEFITS

IF YOU HAVE WORKED IN A JOB INSURED BY

A STATE UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION LAW,

PROTECT YOUR RIGHT TO FUTURE BENEFITS.

GET A CARD LIKE THIS

FROM YOUR COMPANY CLERK.

FILL IT IN AND RETURN IT TO

HIM AT ONCE !

Laws are being proposed in most States to protect

the benefit rights of men who entered military service

after April 1, 1940. To protect your rights under

any such legislation, the special card should be

completed and returned to your company clerk for

mailing to the Social Security Board.

[...]

A card for a law not yet passed

The sheet is frank about its timing. It says only that laws to protect servicemen's benefit rights "are being proposed." The soldier is asked to file now, against legislation that might come later. The sample form, as the archive transcribes it, asks for a Social Security account number, name, camp and home addresses, the date he entered service, the states he worked in during the two prior years, and his last employer.

The FRAME catalog tags a faint fear appeal: the risk of losing benefits. That is a fair label, and a mild one. The purpose is listed as "Warn or inform," and the sheet mostly does that. It tells a man how to keep a benefit tied to his civilian job, and it names the office that will hold his card.

Two details stand out from the citizen's side. The data goes from a soldier to his clerk to a federal board, and the notice says nothing about other uses. And "AT ONCE !" is urgent language for a filing whose legal basis was still being written. Neither point makes the request improper.

Another Social Security sheet on this site is Ralph Patterson's poster about lost cards, which puts a price on carelessness in jeeps. Context on the administration that issued it is in the Roosevelt administration essay.