Social Security (United States)

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President Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935

The Social Security in the United States based on the 1935 adopted the Social Security Act , which was amended several times to date and expanded.

history

President Lyndon B. Johnson signing Medicare Act

At the onset of the Great Depression , the poverty rate rose in general, but especially among the elderly, who fell 50% below the poverty line. Initially, there were many individual state welfare programs in place, but they had only very small budgets. Until then, there was only unemployment insurance in the state of Wisconsin (introduced in 1932, effective from 1934). Public retirement insurance schemes existed formally in some states, but they were severely underfunded and practically meaningless. The lack of social security made the United States an exception among modern industrialized nations.

Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt , the Social Security Act was passed in 1935 as part of the New Deal . Above all, this law established a public pension scheme, which was one of the first in the world to be organized on a pay-as-you-go basis. Beginning on January 1, 1937, half of the contributions were paid by employees through a payroll tax and half by the employer. Because of the minimum contribution period, the first monthly pension payments were made in 1940. In addition, financial subsidies from the federal government were provided for state insurance programs against unemployment, illness and others. Since the legal definition of employment, as a prerequisite for participation in social security, was tailored to the living conditions of white men, women and ethnic minorities were often effectively excluded from participation.

Since 1934, the United States Supreme Court had ruled some of Roosevelt's laws unconstitutional. To save the New Deal, the President campaigned for the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 to be passed , which would allow the President to appoint additional judges in all federal courts where judges over the age of 69 refused to retire to go. The law was not passed, but the debate over the law in 1937 brought about a turning point in the case law of the Supreme Court, which in 1937 dismissed two major rulings on the constitutional concerns of plaintiffs against the Social Security Act.

In 1939 the widow's and orphan's pension was introduced. By 1950 only about half of American workers could participate in social security. In 1950, the number of participants was expanded considerably through changes in the law, and in that year Congress also passed the first pension increase (by 77%). In 1956 the disability pension was introduced. In 1961, the opportunity to take early retirement was created at the age of 62.

In 1965, under President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Great Society program expanded the social security system to include health insurance. Thus Medicare was created, a public health insurance for residents aged 65 and over. Likewise, with Medicaid, a public health insurance for very low-income residents was created.

In 1972 a law was passed according to which the pension amount is automatically adjusted to rising consumer prices and rising wages. In the early 1980s, the Greenspan Commission was set up to work out cost-containment programs. As a result, President Ronald Reagan signed a law in 1983 that reduced early retirement and made pensions partially subject to income tax.

In 1997, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was launched as public health insurance for children and pregnant women of the working poor .

Overview of the services

Social Security Public Pension Insurance card
Medicare public health insurance card
  1. since 1935 old-age pension ( O ld A ge I nsurance, OAI)
  2. since 1939 widows and orphans ( O ld A ge S urvivors I nsurance, OASIS)
  3. Since 1956 invalidity pension ( O ld A ge S urvivors D isability I nsurance, OASDI)
  4. in 1935 introduced elderly care ( O ld A ge A ssistance, OAA), and the income support for the blind ( A id to the B lind, AB), together with in 1950 introduced income aid for disabled ( A id to the P ermanently and T otally D isabled , APTD), 1974 in the uniform social welfare service program Supplemental Security income (SSI) merged
  5. in 1935 introduced income support for needy families with dependent children ( A id to the D ependent C hildren, ADC, 1960 A id to Fa Milies with D ependent C hildren, AFDC) existed until 1997 and was from the T emporary A ssistance for N eedy F amilies (TANF) program replaced
  • unemployment insurance
in 1935 introduced unemployment insurance ( U nemployment I nsurance UI), which is funded jointly by the federal government and states
  1. Medicare , a public health insurance scheme for residents over the age of 64, introduced in 1965 by the federal and state governments
  2. Medicaid , a public health insurance scheme for low-income residents, introduced in 1965 by the federal and state governments
  3. introduced in 1997 S tate C hildren's H ealth I nsurance P rogram (SCHIP) , a public health insurance for children and pregnant women from low-income families, which is funded jointly by the federal government and states
  4. the structural changes made by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ( Obamacare ) since 2010, which introduced compulsory health insurance and at the same time forced insurance companies to offer standardized service packages, the basic level of which is available to all insured persons without checking for previous illnesses

financing

With very few exceptions, every employee and every self-employed person is obliged to pay contributions. Financing is provided through Payroll Taxes .

To finance pension insurance and Medicare, the employer and employee each pay a certain percentage of the employee's gross wage as Federal Insurance Contributions Tax , for pension insurance up to a social security wage base of $ 132,900 (as of 2019).

A Federal Unemployment Tax and State Unemployment Tax are levied to fund unemployment insurance .

Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program are not financed through social security contributions or payroll taxes, but directly from the state budget.

Responsibilities

Social Security is managed by the Social Security Administration (SSA), which was founded in 1946 and is based in Baltimore in the US state of Maryland, with around 62,000 employees in 2009. The SSA is therefore for the award of the Social Security Number ( ger .: responsible social security number).

Public health insurance is managed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services . Local administration is taken over by the authorities of the Social Security Administration for Medicare, and by federal state authorities for Medicaid and SCHIP.

Unemployment insurance is managed by the states under their own responsibility. The United States Department of Labor has the authority to issue guidelines.

International comparison

Public and private social spending as a percentage of net national income : France, Germany, Great Britain, Austria, United States, Canada, Australia, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand

In the United States, a relatively large proportion of social spending (10% of net national income ) is paid out of private coffers, mostly in the form of collective bargaining benefits such as employer-mediated health insurance and employer co-payments to private pension schemes. The total (public and private) social expenditure amounts to 31% of net national income and is thus above the OECD average of 28%.

The expenditures of the public pension insurance ( social security ) amount to 6% of the gross domestic product , thus the United States lies somewhat below the OECD average of 7.2%. The average Social Security pension is 18% of the median American income, compared to 27% for the OECD average. 23.6% of American pensioners live in old-age poverty , compared to 9.9% in Germany and the OECD average of 13.3%.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cornell University Law School: United States Code : Title 42, Chapter 7 - Social Security-
  2. ^ A b A Reader's Companion to American History: POVERTY . Archived from the original on February 10, 2006. Retrieved April 27, 2010.
  3. ↑ Peter Clemens, Prosperity, Depression and the New Deal: The USA 1890-1954 , Hodder Education, 4th Edition, 2008, ISBN 978-0-340-96588-7 , pages 204, 205
  4. ^ David M. Kennedy, Freedom From Fear, The American People in Depression and War 1929–1945 , Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-19-503834-7 , p. 260
  5. ^ Social Security Administration: History (accessed November 6, 2011)
  6. ↑ Mink, Gwendolyn. The Wages of Motherhood: Inequality in the welfare state, 1917-1942 . Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995. p. 127
  7. ^ Ronald Edsforth, The New Deal: America's Response to the Great Depression (Problems in American History), John Wiley & Sons, 2000, ISBN 978-1-57718-143-9 , p. 264
  8. ↑ Social Security Administration: History booklet ( Memento of the original from December 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed April 27, 2010) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.socialsecurity.gov
  9. ↑ Internal Revenue Service: Publication 15 (2019), (Circular E), Employer's Tax Guide (accessed June 27, 2019)
  10. ↑ OECD: OECD (2009), Society at a Glance - OECD Social Indicators - Key Findings: United States (English, accessed on April 6, 2010; PDF; 261 kB)
  11. ↑ OECD: Pensions at a glance (2009): United States (accessed April 6, 2010; PDF; 119 kB)
  12. ↑ OECD: United States - Highlights from OECD Pensions at a Glance (English, accessed April 7, 2010; PDF; 425 kB)