|
|
Article: Bait and switch on Social Security: it wasn't created as 'insurance,' but now everybody thinks it is.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- U.S. News & World Report
- Article date:
- April 20, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 All rights reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Social Security advocates have always been scrupulously attentive to questions of rhetoric. Since passage of the Social Security Act in 1935, use of terms such as "insurance," "trust fund," and "earned benefit" has suggested a system in which what you get out is a return on what you paid in, unlike a "welfare program."
Early Social Security advocates likened the program to retirement insurance, in part because doing so offered a way to oppose demands by the elderly for broader benefits. During the Great Depression, millions of impoverished seniors, led by the charismatic Francis Townsend, organized groups in every congressional district demanding that the government ...