What are the Foundations of the Social Welfare System?
How do social security, Medicare, and welfare programs work in the United States? How do the politics surrounding these three social policies differ? • Social Security is a contributory program into which working Americans place a percentage of their wages and from which they receive cash benefits after retirement. • A system of forced savings, Social Security mildly redistributes wealth from higher- to lower-income people and significantly redistributes wealth from younger to older citizens. • An overwhelmingly popular program, Social Security has proven exceedingly difficult for politicians who wish to reform it; it is believed to be the untouchable “third rail” of American politics. • Established in 1965, Medicare is the biggest expansion in social policy since the New Deal; it provides national health insurance for the elderly and the disabled. Recent reforms have attempted to control costs and added prescription drug benefits. • Unlike Social Security and Medicare, welfare program
