Wilbur Cohen
7thUnited States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare
In office May 16, 1968 – January 20, 1969
President	Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by	John W. Gardner
Succeeded by	Robert Finch
Under Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare
In office June 1965 – May 1968
President	Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by	Ivan A. Nestingen
Succeeded by	James H. McCrocklin
Personal details
Born	Wilbur Joseph Cohen (1913-06-10)June 10, 1913 Milwaukee,Wisconsin, U.S.
Died	May 17, 1987(1987-05-17) (aged 73) Seoul, South Korea
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Eloise Bittel ​ (m. 1938)​
Children	3
Education	University of Wisconsin, Madison (BA)
Signature

Wilbur Joseph Cohen (June 10, 1913 – May 17, 1987) was an Americansocial scientist andcivil servant. He was one of the key architects in the creation and expansion of the Americanwelfare state and was involved in the creation of both theNew Deal andGreat Society programs.

Cohen was born inMilwaukee, Wisconsin, to Bessie (née Rubenstein) and Aaron Cohen. He was known to by several nicknames. He was once dubbed "The Man Who BuiltMedicare" andJohn F. Kennedy tagged him "Mr. Social Security", although it wasFrances Perkins, the first woman Secretary of Labor (underFDR), who was the architect of social security.The New York Times called him "one of the country's foremost technicians in public welfare."Time portrayed him as a man of "boundless energy, infectious enthusiasm, and a drive for action." He was a leading expert onSocial Security and a member ofAmericans for Democratic Action.

After graduating from theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison in 1934, Cohen moved toWashington, D.C. where he was aresearch assistant for the committee which drafted theSocial Security Act.

On April 8, 1938, Cohen married Eloise Bittel. They had three sons: Christopher, Bruce and Stuart.^[1]

He was Director of the Bureau of Research and Statistics in charge of program development and legislative coordination with Congress for the Social Security Board (SSB), which was renamed theSocial Security Administration in 1946.

In 1961,PresidentJohn F. Kennedy appointed Cohen as Assistant Secretary for Legislation of Health, Education, and Welfare. According to Christy Ford Chapin (Insuring America's Health: The Public Creation of the Corporate Health Care System p. 205) it was Cohen who, during the writing of Medicare legislation, "advised fellow reformers that partnering with insurance companies would create a politically palatable program"—with the result that America is today the only "developed" country with a for-private-profit health care system and without universal health care. Cohen was responsible for developing many of the details of Medicare and Medicaid.^[2]

Nicholas Lemann (The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America p. 131 & 143) describes Cohen as "a first-generation New Deal social welfare planner [who] was deputy secretary but the real power in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare" and "an old friend of [Lyndon] Johnson." PresidentLyndon B. Johnson elevated him to Under Secretary in 1965, and he served as theU.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare from May 1968 to the end ofJohnson'sterm, following the resignation ofJohn W. Gardner. With a tenure of 249 days, Cohen became the shortest-ever secretary of that department, as the office was succeeded by theU.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services in 1980.

In 1969, Cohen retired at the end of a Johnson's administration. In 1970, Cohen served as the president of the American Public Welfare Association (renamed theAmerican Public Human Services Association in 1997). In 1971, Cohen was elected to theCommon Cause National Governing Board. In 1980 Cohen became a Professor of Public Affairs at theUniversity of Texas at Austin.^[3]

TheUniversity of Michigan inAnn Arbor, where Cohen was aprofessor of Public Welfare Administration and lived for many years, established the Wilbur J. Cohen Collegiate Professor of Social Workprofessorship in his honor.

He died while attending agerontology conference inSeoul,South Korea, on May 17, 1987. He is interred at Garden of Memories Cemetery inKerrville, Texas.

• 
  Cohen in the early days of Social Security withMaurine Mulliner, who was the executive secretary of the Social Security Board in 1935.
• 
  President Johnson signs a bill authorizing education programs for children with disabilities; from left to right:Hugh L. Carey,Dominick V. Daniels,Carl D. Perkins,Albert H. Quie,Winston L. Prouty, Cohen (1968)
• 
  The Wilbur J. Cohen Building at the current US Department of Health and Human Services inWashington, D.C.

• List of Jewish United States Cabinet members

• The Elimination of Poverty in the United States. Wilbur J. Cohen, 1963.
• The Roosevelt New Deal: A Program Assessment Fifty Years After. Wilbur J. Cohen.Austin, Texas:University of Texas Press. 1986 paperback edition:ISBN 0-89940-416-2,ISBN 978-0-89940-416-5.
• Social Security: Universal or Selective? Wilbur J. Cohen andMilton Friedman, co-authors. Washington:American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. 1972.[1]
• Unemployment Insurance in the United States: The First Half Century. Saul J. Blaustein, Wilbur J. Cohen, William Haber, co-authors.Kalamazoo, Michigan:W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. 1993 hardcover edition:ISBN 0-88099-136-4,ISBN 978-0-88099-136-0.

Biography

• Wilbur J. Cohen: the pursuit of power; a bureaucratic biography.Marjorie O'Connell Shearon. Shearon Legislative Service. 1967.
• Mr. Social Security: The Life of Wilbur J. Cohen. Edward D. Berkowitz.^[4]Lawrence, Kansas:University Press of Kansas. 1995 hardcover edition:ISBN 0-7006-0707-2,ISBN 978-0-7006-0707-5.

• Social Security Administration profile
• Guide To Social Security Archives, Papers of Wilbur Cohen
• Kansas Press book on him
• Site on LBJ's cabinet
• Literacy Connections list of publications by Wilbur J. Cohen

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