ABSTRACT
The Great Depression also led to the initiation in this country of what has been described as the welfare state. Unemployment insurance, social security, Medicare and Medicaid, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) are the heart of it. These are largely attempts to use government to provide some assistance to people who are victims of economic insecurity. As such, it has been a substantial success story.22 It is not supposed that people do not try to make some provision themselves, but that additional help may be needed. Certainly those in poverty are not able to provide for insecurity and not all lower-middle-class people can. Indeed anyone can be hit by medical bills that only the wealthy can protect themselves against. Our social security system is far from providing adequate protection against economic insecurity beyond what individual saving can provide.
