Social Security, as its title suggests, is designed to provide security. In order to protect individuals from unforeseen disasters, the government distributes certain risks among all members of society so that no single family bears the burden of such events. Although the need for economic security affects all age groups and all classes of society, a particularly acute aspect of this need is the problem of old age and the possibility of retiring after a long working life. Retirement, a feature of life we take for granted today, has not always been easily accessible, and it has been difficult to develop adequate systems for retirement. One of the first American books on Social Security was written by a Columbia University economics professor named Henry Seager. Seager explained the principle of Social Security-based retirement provision in his 1910 book “Social Insurance, A Program of Social Reform”: Congress enacted the Social Security Act of 1935 as part of the economic and social reforms that constituted President Franklin D. Roosevelt`s New Deal. The Act provided for the payment of monthly benefits to skilled workers who were at least 65 years of age or for the payment of a lump sum payable in the event of the death of the estate of an employee who died before the age of 65. One of the first to propose a pension system recognized as a forerunner of modern social security was Thomas Paine, a member of the Revolutionary War. His last great pamphlet, published in the winter of 1795, was a controversial call for the establishment of a public system of economic security for the new nation. Under the title of Agrarian Justice, it called for the creation of a system in which those who inherit property would pay a 10% inheritance tax to create a special fund from which each citizen would receive a one-off scholarship of £15 at the age of 21 to enable him to start his life.

and annual benefits of £10. which should be paid to anyone 50 years of age or older. protect against poverty among older adults. An insured person or insured person is a person who has sufficient income subject to social security contributions to allow the payment of benefits in his or her proof of remuneration. The conditions for taking out insurance are described in subsection B. On June 8, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced in a message to Congress his intention to provide a Social Security program. Subsequently, by decree, the President established the Economic Security Committee, composed of five senior officials. The committee was tasked with examining the whole issue of economic uncertainty and making recommendations that would serve as a basis for legislative review by Congress.

Despite the fact that America had a “Social Security program” in the form of Civil War pensions since 1862, this precedent did not extend to society as a whole. The extension of this type of benefit programme to the general population under social security should await further social and historical developments. In mid-August 1941, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt met secretly aboard a warship off the coast of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic. On the sixth anniversary of the Social Security Act, they announced a joint statement known as the Atlantic Charter. The 383-word charter is the expression of “certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries, on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world”. This short charter was to be the founding document of the United Nations and one of its eight principles was the requirement of social insurance. The former chairman of the Social Security Council, John Winant, was then U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. Although Winant did not attend the conference, the social security provision was a proposal he made from London that was immediately accepted by Churchill and FDR. The Industrial Revolution transformed the majority of self-employed agricultural workers into wage earners working for large industrial companies.

In an agricultural society, wealth could easily be seen as tied to one`s own work, and anyone willing to work could generally afford at least to live naked for themselves and their family. But when economic income consists mainly of wages, economic security can be threatened by factors beyond one`s control – such as recessions, layoffs, business bankruptcies, etc. In medieval Europe, the feudal system was the basis of economic security, with the feudal lord responsible for the economic survival of the serfs working on the estate. The feudal lord had economic security as long as there was a steady supply of serfs to work the estate, and the serfs had economic security only as long as they were fit enough to do their job. In the Middle Ages, the idea of charity as a formal economic organization also appeared for the first time. Family members and loved ones have always felt responsible for each other, and to the extent that the family had resources to rely on, this was often a source of economic security, especially for the elderly or frail. And land itself was an important form of economic security for those who owned it or lived on farms. Although the definition of social security can vary greatly in its details, its basic characteristics are: the insurance principle, according to which a group of people is “insured” in some way against a defined risk, and a social element, which usually means that the program is partly shaped by broader social goals and not just by the self-interest of individual participants. Social security coverage can be provided for a number of different types of insurance benefits, from disability and death to old age or unemployment. It may be obvious to view death, disability or unemployment as conditions that cause loss of income and can be mitigated by pooling risks. At first, it`s a bit strange to think of age or retirement in these terms.

But this is exactly how early Social Security theorists understood retirement as a loss of income due to job loss. In the United States, the Social Security Program (42 U.S.C. 401 ff.) was created in 1935 to provide old-age, survivor, and disability insurance benefits to workers and their families. Unlike social assistance, social security benefits are paid to an individual or his or her family, at least in part, on the basis of his or her employment history and previous contributions to the scheme. The program is administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA). Since the inception of the Medicare program in 1965, it and Social Security have been closely linked. While the original law used “Social Security” in a broader sense, including government-funded welfare programs and unemployment benefits within its scope, and the Medicare legislature took the form of amendments to that law, current usage associates the term with old age, survivors, and disability insurance. Despite all the institutional strategies adopted in early America to ensure some degree of economic security, enormous changes would sweep America that, over time, would undermine existing institutions. Beginning in the mid-1880s, four major demographic shifts occurred in America that made traditional systems of economic security increasingly useless: With the inauguration of President Roosevelt in 1932 and the introduction of his proposal for economic security, based on Social Security rather than welfare, the debate changed.