ABSTRACT
The social security crisis is threefold as it concerns spending for health, old age pensions, and unemployment benefits. Spending for health in the United States represented about 11 percent of the Gross national product (GNP) in 1983, as much as in Sweden in the same year, and it was expected to rise to 15 percent within ten or fifteen years. The average annual percentage increase in the GNP was only 7.5 percent for 1965–70, 10.2 percent for 1970–80 and only 8.9 percent for 1980”. The decisive factor with regard to old age pensions is the numerical relationship between the working population, which contributes the money for the pensions, and the retired population, which receives the benefits. The redistribution of money through the social security system operates between generations as much as between the rich and the poor, to such an extent that the incomes of the retired appear relatively higher than those of the active working population of the same social category.
