On March 26, 1973, amidst a recession that brought us the word "stagflation," my grandfather, Meyer Berger, wrote in an opinion piece in this newspaper that comparisons "between present or imminent conditions and the Depression years certainly can not have been written by anyone who was there."

Thirty-seven years, the bursting of a financial bubble and a Great Recession later, I wonder what my grandfather, dead now more than a dozen years, would make of the current moment.

Since my grandfather died in 1997, median annual income has remained stagnant at around $50,000. The unemployment rate peaked at 10.1 percent in October and hovered just below that, at 9.7 percent, in March.

It may not be an economic depression but the weak economy appears to be taking its toll on our spirits. Even members of the Millennial generation, those 20-somethings for whom the term "funemployment" was coined, are beginning to stress out.

A poll published March 19 by the Harvard University Institute of Politics reported that 60 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds are concerned about paying their bills; more than half worry they cannot afford to pay for health care. Most say they are unlikely to be better off financially when they are their parents' ages.

My grandfather thought he too would do no better than his own father, an immigrant entrepreneur who had made his American dream in the burlap bag business. As he recounted in these pages, my grandfather was also selling burlap bags in the summer of 1932 when necessity forced him to become an onion entrepreneur as well. If he wanted to sell burlap bags to onion farmers, he discovered, he first had to find a buyer of surplus onions. He found that buyer in the A&P supermarket and when the deal was completed -- burlap bags to the onion farmer; onions to the A&P -- my grandfather cleared $100.

Knowing he could make a profit even in the worst of times left my grandfather with an indelible optimism. But that was not the only source of his confidence.

My grandfather wrote that he had not expected much of Franklin Roosevelt when the patrician former governor was inaugurated the following spring, but "after his 'nothing to fear but fear itself' speech we knew someone was in charge and morale improved immediately."

The signature legislation of FDR's first term was the New Deal and the creation of Social Security, a benefit most Americans today consider not only a reward for a lifetime of hard work but a birthright payable to them by their children.

My grandfather's confidence that anything was possible gave me the courage to pursue my own career rather than join the family business. And like my grandfather, I went out on a ledge with my choice to become a journalist.

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For the past four years, I covered health care for a business magazine. And for much of the last 12 months I have covered the cynicism that marked the fight over health care reform.

But it took getting laid off two weeks ago to make health reform feel personal.

After I lost my job, my health insurer sent me a letter. Marked "certificate of prior coverage" it was an "important" letter, my insurer told me. Should I want to get health insurance on my own I would need this letter to avoid being denied coverage for a pre-existing condition.

A day later, President Barack Obama signed health reform -- and with the sweep of a pen it soon will become illegal for insurers to deny individuals health care coverage. In the coming years, working-age Americans will have access to subsidies to help them pay for health insurance, even if they are unemployed. I promptly threw away that letter.

My grandfather disavowed comparisons to the Depression, excepting that "we were tougher than we had thought and probably still are." But let's allow ourselves to acknowledge at least one similarity: Out of uncertain times comes the political will to address social ills.

The Social Security Act was not a full solution to affording retirement; neither is the heath care law a full solution to insurance access or skyrocketing health care costs. But both were and are a good start. Just as older Americans can worry less because of Social Security, working-age Americans can worry less because of the new health insurance law.

For many, the Depression was a lesson in fragility, and a reminder to always keep money under the mattress and canned food in the cupboard. For my grandfather, it was the source of his confidence and his optimism -- in himself and in his government.

It may have taken some time, but someone in the White House is definitely in charge.

Cartoonist Rob Rogers does "Rob's Rough," an early look at his work and his creative process, exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.