Social Security: A Call for Reform

The history of the United States in the 20th century is marked by fluctuations in what Americans have expected from their national government. Economic and social changes have required the government to adapt its relationship with individuals. In the early part of the century, the federal government played a very small role in individuals' day-to-day society."3 Social Security was considered the answer to this problem. In 1935, legislators initiated a program that would become the primary source of retirement security for the elderly. Social Security became the first large-scale social program that reflected a greatly increased role for the federal government in the everyday lives of Americans. lives. Large-scale social programs were nonexistent. Individuals were seen as succeed- Policymakers opined that In the years since its inception, Social Security has been almost continuously expanded. The majority of the expansion took place in the 1950s and 1960s, when economics and conditions within society encouraged the active participation of the federal government in society. The government protected the United States from the Soviet Union with a strong national defense, passed and enforced civil rights legislation, promised "to end poverty as we know it," and paid for itself from the ing or failing based on their own abilities, with the threat of failure without a "safetynet" deemed necessary to encourage selfreliance and individual effort,1 these circumstances ('convinced the majority of the American people that individuals could not The economic crisis of the late 1920s and 1930s and resulting social changes, altered the perception of the strict autonomy of individuals. The stock market crashed, banks failed, whole industries collapsed, and a large number of individuals, regardless of effort or ability, were left unemployed and themselves provide adequately for their old age and that some sort of greater security should be provided by society."3