In 1934, with the Great Depression gripping the country, Pittman's appointment at the Rockefeller Institute was ended, and, accepting a pay cut, she took a position at the New York State Department of Health Laboratories, where she worked on biologics (vaccines and antisera injected into the human body).[8] In 1935, the U.S. Congress passed and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act, which included funds to expand health research in the federal government.