“Social!”

independent agency charged with administering the national program of contributory social insurance. Under the program, employees, employers, and the self-employed pay contributions that are pooled in special trust funds. When earnings stop or are reduced because the worker retires, dies, or becomes disabled, monthly cash benefits are paid to replace part of the earnings the family has lost. Principal benefits programs include hospital insurance programs, retirement and disability insurance programs, and Supplemental Security Income insurance programs for the aged, blind, and disabled.

established a permanent national old-age pension system through employer and employee contributions; later it was extended to include dependents, the disabled, and other groups. Responding to the economic impact of the Great Depression, 5,000,000 elderly people in the early 1930s joined nationwide Townsend clubs, promoted by Francis E. Townsend to support his program demanding a $200 monthly pension for everyone over the age of 60. In 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt set up a committee on economic security to consider the matter; after studying its recommendations, Congress in 1935 enacted the Social Security Act, providing old-age benefits to be financed by a payroll tax on employers and employees. Railroad employees were covered separately under the Railroad Retirement Act of 1934. The Social Security Act has been periodically amended, expanding the types of coverage, bringing progressively more workers into the system, and adjusting both taxes and benefits in an attempt to keep pace with inflation.

: an actual or hypothetical agreement among individuals forming an organized society or between the community and the ruler that defines and limits the rights and duties of each

: a person who comes onto the property of another on a social basis

: a person who furnishes another with alcohol in a social setting and not as a licensed vendor

: insurance of the individual against certain hazards (as unemployment, old age, and disability) that is undertaken, facilitated, or enforced by government

: the principle or practice or a program of public provision (as through social insurance or assistance) for the economic security and social welfare of the individual and his or her family