미국적 가치/시스템과 뉴딜 노령연금의 도입

The American Value/ System and the Introduction of the New Deal Old Age Insurance

The Old Age Insurance of the Social Security Act provided economic security net for the elderly. Before it was introduced, the care of the poor of all ages was a responsibility assumed primarily by the private sector, generally through the extended family and private charity. With the onset of the Great Depression, emerging concern with the social and economic problems faced by the elderly has increasingly encouraged action on behalf of the older segment of the population. While discussing the right way of implementing welfare policy for the elderly, the New Dealers working on the welfare system framed their discourse around the need to reform in a way that could appeal to the American public. Drawing on an ideological repertoire where personal autonomy and self reliance represented core issues, they formulated a discourse about social order to justify the adoption of public pension programs. Against the image of dependency associated with the public relief, these New Dealers supported governmental intervention taking the form of public pensions. The original 1935 act as a result applied only to a group of people who hold secure occupation in the industrial sectors. The groups excluded were those for which there appeared to be great administrative problems. Those excluded were multiply disadvantaged. As citizens they were not only deprived of the dignity attached to a contributory program, but they were compelled to support a dual system of noncontributory and contributory relief, producing the apparent injustice of some receiving a demeaning free benefit while others received a due return on their contribution. The segregation of benefits for the poor and the middle class, embedded in the Social Security Act from its inception remained a characteristic of American welfare policy.