DECEMBER: Huffington Post reporters Arthur Delaney and Ryan Grim discuss “The Poorhouse: Aunt Winnie, Glenn Beck, and the Politics of the New Deal,” their over six-thousand word investigation into the legacy of Social Security in the United States.

1.) Why did you decide to look into Social Security?

President Obama went on 60 Minutes in November and positioned himself as more aggressive in going after entitlement spending, saying, "We're gonna have to, you know, tackle some big issues like entitlements that, you know, when you listen to the Tea Party or you listen to Republican candidates they promise we're not gonna touch." Wait - so who is going to touch Social Security, and why are they going to touch it? And why do we have it in the first place? Meanwhile, what on earth is Glenn Beck talking about?

2.) What surprised you as you did your research?

First, the simple fact that unless they were rich, old people in the old days had two choices: live with the kids or go to the poorhouse. Second, the way rhetoric about the deserving and undeserving poor hasn't changed a bit in 100 years - the only thing that's changed is who's talking and who's deserving. Progressives in the 19th Century pushed poorhouses as a more appropriate way to deal with poverty than giving financial aid, an idea flowing from the uglier, social Darwinian elements of that movement. Their comments on the negative effect of aid on the jobless sounded as if they could have come from a GOP floor speech circa 2010.

3.) What has the response been since you published it?

Several people have written us to say the story about Aunt Winnie struck them. Their responses struck us - especially the one from a man who wrote: "Your piece brought back long forgotten childhood memories of my grandmother sending me to the houses of people living on the place and near it with boxes of food and clothing. I remember how apologetically grateful they were, both black and white, and, for some reason, it makes me feel guilty, even after all these years."

4.) Is there something you wish you had room to include in the piece but could not?

We had several thousand words on how the corporation flipped the Constitution on its head to become a person, but decided to cut it to focus on the Social Security Act and poorhouses. Hopefully it'll see the light of cyberspace one day soon.