Education
Altmeyer was born in DePere, Wisconsin on May 8, 1891, and developed an early interest in social security while working as an office boy in his uncle's law office. For a while he was a public school teacher and school principal and also attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating with a B.A. in 1914. In 1918, he re-entered the University as a graduate student, where he studied with John R. Commons, one of a handful of American economists versed in social insurance who was actively interested in workers' compensation, unemployment insurance and health insurance. Altmeyer became interested in social and labor policies when he learned about Commons' role as the principal author of Wisconsin's workmen's compensation program, which was then the only one in the United States. They and others at Wisconsin were proponents of the progressive, liberal social policy of a positive and vigorous role for government. In 1918, Altmeyer became Commons' graduate research assistant. Together they co-authored a report on "The Health Insurance Movement in the United States" for the Illinois Health Insurance Commission and the Ohio Health and Old Age Insurance Commission. Altmeyer was also working for the Wisconsin State Tax Commission and the Wisconsin Industrial Commission, while working on his M.A. which was granted in 1921, and his PhD in economics, which was granted in 1931.
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