Social security includes social assistance---which is means-tested non-contributory assistance---social insurance---which is contributory---AND hybrids of the two. It does NOT include universal public healthcare, which is social policy, NOT social security.

Social security is today an immensely popular term. Everybody in public life is for social security and nearly all discussion of the subject concerns improvement and extension. It remains, however, a term of uncertain meaning, which conveys very different ideas to different people. To many Americans it means nothing more than old age pensions; to others, it is a socialized form of insurance protection against hazards whose normal consequences are poverty and dependency; to still others, a governmentally guaranteed minimum income in all contingencies of life; to others, again, an economic system which operates to afford plenty for everybody. These are only some of the concepts of social security widely prevalent in this country. This lack of precise meaning to some extent accounts for the popularity of social security. Social security is in fact more of an ideal than an institution or group of institutions. Yet if we are to intelligently discuss the place which social security should have in postwar America or how social security can be improved, we need to give an institutional content to the term.

What is called "social security" differs from country to country. Social security is a part of the total institutional pattern of the nations in which it exists and is most soundly conceived in conformity with such total patterns. It is something different in totalitarian countries like Germany and Japan from what it is in democratic countries like the United States and the nations of the British Commonwealth, and some- thing else still in Soviet Russia. The existing governmental structure, the economic system which prevails, the stage of economic development attained, the history and traditions of the nation will all have their in- fluence upon the social security institutions of the country and even upon what is considered to be social security. So will such social and economic factors as the state of family life, the economic position of women, the mobility of labor, the extent of union organization, and, above all, the nation's economic productivity. This holds true also for psychological factors such as the public attitude toward government, the degree to which security is valued as contrasted with the opportuni- ties presented by risks, and the prevailing concepts of progress.

In this paper I shall use the term social security as it was defined in the report on Approaches to Social Security, published in 1942 by the International Labour Office. This includes within the term both social assistance and social insurance and also social security systems. Social security systems represent an integration of social insurance and social assistance. Social assistance stems from the old institution of poor relief and "expresses the obligation of the community toward its needy members." It includes noncontributory pensions to the aged and to invalids (the American old age assistance and aid to the blind), mothers' pensions (officially called "aid to dependent children" in this country), unemployment assistance, medical assistance, rehabilitation of the disabled, and general public assistance (or relief). It is financed from general tax sources and is free to the beneficiaries. Social insurance, in contrast, "is situated between social assistance commercial insurance." It is established by law and serves social pur- poses, but utilizes insurance principles. Today it includes workmen's compensation (which is known as industrial accident insurance in con- tinental Europe), sickness (or health) insurance, old age, invalidity and survivors' insurance, and unemployment insurance (or compensa- tion).

As thus defined, social security is broader than social insurance, although the latter term is sometimes applied to the entire scope of social security. It is narrower than the English social services and the Scandinavian social policy, which include, besides the social security institutions which have been enumerated, such other governmental services as public education, public health and medical services, public housing developments, minimum wage legislation, and still other publicly financed and directed programs for the benefit of people in low income groups. It is also narrower than economic security, which includes in addition to social security many other institutions whose objective is economic stability and an assurance of a satisfying mini- mum income for everybody.

As I conceive social security, it is oriented toward family and individual welfare rather than the functioning of the economic system. It is social in the sense that it is provided for by law and is compulsory in at least some of its aspects. It is usually administered by public officials and is always strictly controlled by the government. Its ap- proach, however, is from the point of view of the welfare of the family and the individual rather than that of the nation as an entity or of society in the abstract. Its concern is with the immediate hazards con- fronting the family and the individual, or, rather, with their economic consequences, not with ultimate causes, as they appear to an economist.

Such a concept of social security is consistent with the totality of our existing institutions and calls for no revolutionary changes. Far from being inconsistent with our free enterprise system and our democratic government, it is a bulwark to these basic institutions, vitally necessary, under present conditions, for their preservation and continued suc- cessful functioning. Such a concept of socal security is also in accord with the past history of the development of social security in the United States and, more specifically, with the statements regarding social security which were made by the President, the Congressional com- mittees in charge of the legislation, and the Committee on Economic Security, which drafted the measure, at the time of the enactment of the Social Security Act.