ABSTRACT
This chapter presents major American social insurance programs, with indications of the issues involved in adopting and developing each type of insurance. Compensation of workers for injuries received on the job was the first item of social insurance provided in the United States. As with workmen's compensation, unemployment benefits are provided as a proportion of the worker's earnings, generally about 50 percent of regular earnings. In 1939, coverage was added for the dependent survivors of a worker who died before retirement, so the official name of social security became Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI). In 1914, three years after health insurance was adopted in Great Britain, efforts were begun in the United States to develop support for health insurance. The idea of a welfare state, a state that would insure its citizens against all significant hazards to income and that would assure to all certain services essential to their well-being, developed in Great Britain during World War II.
