Social insurance

“ Not only does the author endeavor to solve this complex problem as to the ‘incidence of social insurance charges,’ but also ‘to reach a reasoned conclusion with respect to the wisdom of a policy of social insurance.’ ... He finds that instead of destroying thrift, social insurance will rather encourage and stimulate it; that compulsory insurance against sickness and accident and superannuation is a definite step towards elimination of poverty. ”

“ Our basic social security program, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance system, to which individuals contribute during their productive years and receive benefits based on previous earnings, is designed to shield them from destitution. Last year I recommended extension of the social insurance system to include more than 10,000,000 additional persons. ”

“ Thus, provision is made for expected increasing costs of the program.
The Social Security system may be accurately described as a form of social insurance, enacted pursuant to Congress' power to 'spend money in aid of the 'general welfare," Helvering v. Davis, supra, 301 U.S. at page 640, 57 S.Ct. at page 908, whereby persons gainfully employed, and those who employ them, are taxed to permit the payment of benefits to the retired and disabled, and their dependents. ”

“ Fourth, compulsory insurance is a social necessity, for where nothing has been laid aside for a rainy day, the interruption of earnings subjects the laborer and his family to hardship and disaster. Wisely administered social insurance prevents a great deal of poverty and distress which would otherwise constitute an added burden upon charitable organizations. ”

“ Article 70 The State shall develop social insurance undertakings, establish a social insurance system, and set up social insurance funds so that labourers may receive assistance and compensations under such circumstances as old age, illness, work-related injury, unemployment and child-birth. ”

“ The social insurance services, including national health insurance, unemployment insurance, and widows’, orphans’ and old-age contributory pensions — the workmen’s accident compensation scheme is also put in this class. ”

“ Assumption of risk, contributory negligence, and the fellow servant doctrine are fast being abrogated by statute. A system of social insurance is being instituted that is distributing the unmerited hardships due to accidents, sickness, old age and unemployment in a more equitable manner. ”

“ Article 72 The sources of social insurance funds shall be determined according to the branches of insurance, and an overall raising of social insurance funds shall be practised step by step. The employing unit and labourers must participate in social insurance and pay social insurance premiums in accordance with the law. ”

“ Workmen's Compensation Insurance should be transferred to Social Security, and unscrupulous doctors, lawyers, Workmen Compensation Insurance Companies, undertakers, and other parasites, should not be allowed to consume the major part of the insurance paid to the worker who is injured at work. ”

“ On the principle of autonomous administration by the insured, a unitary and comprehensive social insurance system serves to maintain the health and strength of the working population, to protect motherhood, and to provide against the economic consequences of old age, disability, unemployment and other vicissitudes of life. ”

“ This book tells how social insurance is combating poverty in European countries and how these methods apply to American conditions. It deals with poverty due to sickness, old age, industrial accidents, unemployment, widowhood, or orphanage, with Employers’ Liability Laws, Old Age Pensions, Pensions for Widows, etc. ”

“ There are five wage classes and a special postal service with insurance stamps. It is, however, impossible to obtain from German reports much data for old age alone, which is almost always classed with invalidity and often with accident, sickness, etc. As in every country, there was at first much discussion whether such social insurance should be compulsory or voluntary, contributory or non-contributory, universal or partial, etc., and different countries and agencies have decided these questions differently. ”

“ Insurance means making some kind of provision out of present means, so as to reduce the injury and suffering that would result from a future mishap. Usually, likewise, it implies uniting with others to distribute the expense fairly over all in the group. Social insurance is the term most frequently applied to the various institutions and plans provided, more or less under the regulation of law, for the protection of the lower-paid workers in most modern countries. The terms industrial insurance and workingmen's insurance are likewise used. ”

“ Through the Social Security Act and related legislation, Congress has created a comprehensive national insurance system that provides benefits for retired workers, disabled workers, unemployed workers, and their families. ”

“ Starting from the assumptions that federal social security insurance, like welfare assistance, is a 'public benefit' in which the beneficiaries have neither contract nor property interests, and that statutory classifications affecting the basic needs of individuals are viewed no differently under the Constitution from classifications in the area of business regulation, the Court concludes that the classification here has a reasonable basis and is consistent with the Fifth Amendment. ”

“ We on Mars are wondering why your government has created what you call the Federal Old Age and Survivors Insurance, through your Social Security Boards, for your old people; and then provide them with such a small pension. Not only are the old people neglected, it seems to us, but money which could help them is lavishly spent on sumptuous Social Security Board offices staffed by young, and high salaried officials. ”

“ The State shall investigate all forms of usuary.
X ⁠1. The social welfare authorities shall offer the worker the security of aid in misfortune.
⁠2. There shall be an increase in social insurance for old age, incapacity, maternity, work accidents, ailments caused by profession, tuberculosis and unemployment, with a view to establishing a comprehensive insurance system. The granting of an adequate pension to aged workers shall receive prime consideration.
XI ⁠1. National production is an economic unit in the service of the country. ”

“ In the second place social insurance is guaranteeing so much security to the workingman that he is constrained at times to sacrifice his initiative and even to become shiftless, saying in effect to himself, “I’ll be taken care of anyway.” ”

“ The Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, relying upon the support of the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, announces to the working-class of Russia and to the town and village poor, that it will immediately prepare laws on Social Insurance based on the formulas proposed by the Labour organisations:
1. Insurance for all wage-workers without exception, as well as for all urban and rural poor. ”

“ But it is much to be desired that in large part the finances of a system of social insurance should be disassociated from the ordinary budgetary system of taxation and public expenditures. The fundamental reason why the premiums should be divided between employers and employees is that this is most favorable to the equal participation and coöperative efforts toward reducing the risk, and developing right industrial and political relations. Everywhere it is the practice to provide for representation nearly in proportion to contributions. ”

“ If, as is probable, the principle of social insurance is ultimately to prevail, and if a certain amount of the regular income of every labourer is to be retained and laid by to form a provision for his old age, which his employer or the state will increase in certain proportions, we believe that it would be equitable to increase the provision laid by for the father of a family in a larger ratio than the provision laid by for a celibate. ”

“ It is the job of the social insurance to raise the health of the people, even by precautionary measures, to provide help to the ill, the pregnant and the postnatal and to provide sufficient supplies to people with limited or no ability to work, as well as the widows and the elderly. ”

“ The coverage of all social security schemes continued to expand, with 17.53 million more urban workers subscribing to basic old-age insurance, 20.28 million more subscribing to basic medical insurance, and the unemployment, workers' compensation and maternity insurance steadily expanding to cover more workers. ”

“ This right is guaranteed by general mandatory state social insurance on account of the insurance payments of citizens, enterprises, institutions and organizations, and also from budgetary and other sources of social security; by the establishment of a network of state, communal and private institutions to care for persons incapable of work. ”

“ On the basis of this insurance the workers shall have, in conformity with statute, the right to health care and other benefits in the case of illness, childbirth benefits, benefits in the case of diminution or loss of working capacity, unemployment and old age, and other social security benefits, and for their dependents — the right to health care, survivors' pensions, and other social security benefits. ”

“ Historically the unquestioned tendency is from the liability principle to the direct insurance principle, with a wayside inn, perhaps, in some law like that of Great Britain, the law of France being almost squarely on the social insurance ground so far as it goes. ”

“ In other words, an aged person earning $75.00 per month should forfeit the Social Security pension for the period of his employment.
"Social Security should also provide for the crippled, disabled, blind, and other handicapped individuals of all ages;—widows and orphans—should be provided with a reasonable, self-supporting pension. Furthermore, Social Security should develop into an annuity insurance for everyone. The amount of payments should be in ratio to the premiums turned in by the policy holder. ”

“ Under the challenged offset provision, federal social security disability benefits are reduced only for those persons whose disability entitles them to workmen's compensation. Other persons who receive other kinds of disability compensation-for example, private insurance benefits or tort damages-are allowed the full amount of federal social security benefits. ”

“ Here, for a generation, all workers whose income was less than a specified amount, have had to insure against sickness, accident, and death. This compulsory insurance forms a part of the extensive programme of social legislation which Germany has promulgated for the protection of her industrial workers.
The insurance funds are maintained in part by the workers, in part by the employers, and in part by the government. Under the compulsory provisions of the law no man can by his incapacity or death plunge his family into poverty or throw them upon the community for support. ”

“ Our Social Security System should be developed into the main reliance of our people for basic protection against the economic hazards of old-age, unemployment, and illness. I earnestly hope that the Congress will complete action at this session on legislation to increase the benefits and extend the coverage of old-age and survivors' insurance. The widespread movement to provide pensions in private industry dramatizes the need for improvements in the public insurance system. ”

“ The Government has still other opportunities--to help raise the standard of living of our citizens. These opportunities lie in the fields of social security, health, education, housing, and civil rights.
The present coverage of the social security laws is altogether inadequate; the benefit payments are too low. One-third of our workers are not covered. Those who receive old-age and survivors insurance benefits receive an average payment of only $25 a month. Many others who cannot work because they are physically disabled are left to the mercy of charity. ”

“ Thus they opposed—and helped to defeat—a scheme for compulsory national insurance chiefly on the ground that "the social services in a modern State were the insurance premiums which Capitalism paid on its life policy." ”

“ We must provide hospital insurance for our older citizens financed by every worker and his employer under Social Security, contributing no more than $1 a month during the employee's working career to protect him in his old age in a dignified manner without cost to the Treasury, against the devastating hardship of prolonged or repeated illness. ”

“ This administration will continue the vigorous prosecution of the social amelioration program. We give a higher premium to this social service program to demonstrate to our masses that in freedom and by democratic processes we can achieve peace, prosperity, and happiness. The Social Security Act, for instance, which gives to non-government wage earners insurance protection against sickness, disability, old age, death, and unemployment, will be fully implemented. ”

“ Congress determined that the Social Security Act, containing a system of unemployment and old-age insurance as well as the categorical assistance programs now at issue, was to be a major step designed to ameliorate the problems of economic insecurity. The primary purpose of the categorical assistance programs was to encourage the States to provide new and greatly enhanced welfare programs. ”

“ The right of workers to social security shall be ensured through obligatory insurance based on the principles of reciprocity and solidarity and past labour, in self-managing communities of interest, on the basis of contributions collected from workers' personal incomes and contributions collected from income of organizations of associated labour, or contributions collected on resources of other organizations or communities in which they work. ”