A Challenge To Social Security

A Challenge to Social Security: The Changing Roles of Women and Men in American Society is a collection of papers that deals with social security reform. The papers concern insurance and pure income transfer aspects of various proposals and the assumptions regarding the family and work behavior found in each proposal. The proposed reforms attempt to fix the shortcomings of the Old Age, Survivors Insurance (OASI) Program, sometimes at the expense of reducing the subsidy for women who remain at home, or through alterations of the subsidy's nature. Other papers discuss the current spouse benefits under the dual entitlement rule; homemaker credits; child-care drop-out years; and one going against the grain, earnings sharing. One paper sees earning sharing as the only way to provide security to the homemaker without being unfair to the working wife. Other papers tackle the issues of women and a two-tier social security system; the double-decker alternative to eliminate dependency under social security; and the social security reform from a feminist's perspective. This collection can prove useful for economists, sociologists, political scientists, and policy makers involved in welfare and social security.

Social security is a basic human right and a fundamental means for creating social cohesion; it is important not only for the well-being of workers, but also for their families and other community members at large. An indispensable part of government social policy, social security is an important tool to alleviate poverty and if well managed can enhance productivity by providing income security and social services. Through a growing economy and active labour market policies, social security serves as an instrument for sustainable social and economic development. Whereas social security is a cost for formal organizations, it is also a future investment for the well-being of the people. With globalization and structural adjustment policies, social security becomes more necessary today than ever. Social Security Challenges in Tanzania: Transforming the Present - Protecting the Future includes a comprehensive overview of social security perspectives at both the international and regional level. The text focuses specifically on Tanzania, analyzing in detail the policy and legal frameworks for social security provision. Engaging and authoritative, it is an essential text for those interested in the evolution, current challenges, and opportunities in addressing the needs of Tanzanians through social security provisions.

Social Security expansion is back on the agenda, at a time when Americans need it more than ever—here’s what it should look like (and why it matters to everyday people all over the country) “Altman and Kingson cut through the fog of calculated confusion and outright lies about Social Security.”—David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author The COVID-19 crisis has pulled the curtain back on America’s looming retirement income crisis, a fraying of the national community, and ever-worsening income inequality. Never before have so many people’s livelihoods and futures been thrown into flux. Now more than ever, expanding Social Security is essential to addressing these challenges. Social Security Works for Everyone!, an evolution of the argument Nancy J. Altman and Eric R. Kingson made in their acclaimed first book, Social Security Works!, presents the case for expanding Social Security, explaining why monthly benefits need to be increased; why Americans need national paid family leave, sick leave, and long term care protections; and how we can pay for it all. Don’t believe the nearly four-decade, billionaire-funded campaign to convince us that the program is destined to collapse. It isn’t. At a time when growing numbers of Americans are seeing beyond the false choice between financial security for working people and financial security for the federal government, this book eloquently makes the case that universal programs that benefit all Americans (yes, even the rich) make our country stronger and our lives more secure. Social Security works because it embodies the best of American values—the ones that will allow Americans to obtain financial security and weather the next crisis.

A growing chorus of prominent voices in Congress and elsewhere are calling for the expansion of our Social Security system—people who know that Social Security will not “go broke” and does not add a penny to the national debt. Social Security Works! will amplify these voices and offer a powerful antidote to the three-decade-long, billionaire-funded campaign to make us believe that this vital institution is destined to collapse. It isn't. From the Silent Generation to Baby Boomers, from Generation X to Millennials and Generation Z, we all have a stake in understanding the real story about Social Security. Critical to addressing the looming retirement crisis that will affect two- thirds of today's workers, Social Security is a powerful program that can help stop the collapse of the middle class, lessen the pressure squeezing families from all directions, and help end the upward redistribution of wealth that has resulted in perilous levels of inequality. All Americans deserve to have dignified retirement years as well as an umbrella to protect them and their families in the event of disability or premature death. Sure to be a game-changer, Social Security Works! cogently presents the issues and sets forth both an agenda and a political strategy that will benefit us all. At stake are our values and the kind of country we want for ourselves and for those that follow.

The present book gathers edited contributions from a conference which had been held end of 2010 in Ankara, Turkey. This event brought together scientists and trade unionists from several EU- and non EU-countries, exploring one of the major, though frequently underestimated challenges of societal integrity. This continuing debate of the experts of the European S.U.P.I.-Network focussed in particular on the more fundamental issues of precarity. As much as precarity is a matter of socio-individual concern, having severe repercussions on the life of an increasing number of people, it is moreover a development that fundamentally challenges. It questions many of the values claimed by enlightenment and capitalist revolutions as universal, including solidarity, mutual support and equality - though they are formally still claimed as valid; and moreover these developments are part of structural changes that easily fissure the contemporary mode of production. Does this mean the end of society? Or could it be a take-off for another renaissance?

Aging populations are generating both challenges and opportunities for societies around the globe. Increases in longevity and improvements in health raise many questions. What steps can be taken to optimize physical and cognitive health and productivity across the life span? How will older people finance their retirement and health care? What will be the macroeconomic implications of an aging population? How will communities be shaped by the shift in age structure? What global interconnections will affect how each society handles the aging of its population? To address these questions, the National Academies organized a symposium, summarized in the present volume, to determine how best to contribute to an evidence-based dialogue on population aging that will shape policies and programs. Presentations in the fields of biology, public health, medicine, informatics, macroeconomics, finance, urban planning, and engineering approached the challenges of aging from many different angles. The presenters reviewed the current state of knowledge in their respective fields, identifying areas of consensus and controversy and delineating the priority questions for further research and policy development.

In recent years, social innovation has experienced a steep career. Numerous national governments and large organisations like the OECD, the European Commission and UNESCO have adopted the term. Social innovation basically means that people adopt new social practices in order to meet social needs in a different or more effective way. Prominent examples of the past are the Red Cross and the social welfare state or, at present, the internet 2.0 transforming our communication and cooperation schemes, requiring new management concepts, even empowering social revolutions. The traditional concept of innovation as successful new technological products needs fundamental rethinking in a society marked by knowledge and services, leading to a new and enriched paradigm of innovation. There is multiple evidence that social innovation will become of growing importance not only concerning social integration, equal opportunities and dealing with the greenhouse effects but also with regard to preserving and expanding the innovative capacity of companies and societies. While political authorities stress the social facets of social innovation, this book also encompasses its societal and systemic dimensions, collecting the scientific expertise of renowned experts and scholars from all over the world. Based on the contributions of the first world-wide science convention on social innovation from September 2011 in Vienna, the book provides an overview of scientific approaches to this still relatively new field. Forewords by Agnès HUBERT (Member of the Bureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA) of the European Commission) and Antonella Noya (Senior Policy Analyst at OECD, manager of the OECD LEED Forum on Social Innovations)

The second edition of this important text reviews policy developments since 1997. The chapters have been extensively updated and there are new chapters on social security reform, inequalities and social security, and the new 'welfare market'.