Social Security

(noun)

A system whereby the state either through general or specific taxation provides various benefits to help ensure the wellbeing of its citizens.

Related Terms

Examples of Social Security in the following topics:

  • Social Insurance

    • In the United States, Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance are among the most well-known forms of social insurance.
    • Social Security in the U.S. is primarily the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) federal insurance program.
    • Tax deposits are collected by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and are formally entrusted to the Social Security Trust Funds.
    • Social Security provides monetary benefits to retirees, their spouses and surviving dependent children, and disabled workers .
    • Social Security is one of the best-known social insurance programs in the United States.

  • Pensions and Unemployment Insurance

    • Although the program is run by a federal agency, the Social Security Administration, its funds come from employers and employees through payroll taxes.
    • While Social Security is regarded as a valuable "safety net" for retirees, most find that it provides only a portion of their income needs when they stop working.
    • Moreover, with the post-war baby-boom generation due to retire early in the 21st century, politicians grew concerned in the 1990s that the government would not be able to pay all of its Social Security obligations without either reducing benefits or raising payroll taxes.
    • Many Americans considered ensuring the financial health of Social Security to be one of the most important domestic policy issues at the turn of the century.
    • Unlike Social Security, unemployment insurance, also established by the Social Security Act of 1935, is organized as a federal-state system and provides basic income support for unemployed workers.

  • Corporate and Payroll Taxes

    • These often cover advance payment of income tax, social security contributions, and various insurances, such as, unemployment and disability.
    • The charges paid by the employer usually cover the employer's funding of the social security system, and other insurance programs.

  • Disposable Income

    • Amounts required to be deducted by law include federal, state, and local taxes, state unemployment and disability taxes, social security taxes, and other garnishments or levies, but does not include such deductions as voluntary retirement contributions and transportation deductions.

  • Mixed Economies

    • Most government intervention in mixed economy is limited to minimizing the negative consequences of economic events, such as unemployment in recessions, to promote social welfare.
    • However, the government in mixed economies generally subsidizes public goods, such as roads and libraries, and provide welfare services such as social security.

  • Bernanke Era

    • Control the yield on corporate bonds and other privately issued securities
    • In 2010, Bernanke also expressed his views regarding deficit reduction and reforming Social Security/Medicare.
    • He stated that reforming Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs would help reduce the deficit.

  • Government Involvement

    • Programs and agencies that today seem indispensable to the operation of the country's modern economy were created: the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates the stock market; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guarantees bank deposits; and, perhaps most notably, the Social Security system, which provides pensions to the elderly based on contributions they made when they were part of the work force.

  • Glossary

    • Also used to refer to corporate equity, debt securities, and cash.
    • Investment: The purchase of a security, such as a stock or bond.
    • Securities: Paper certificates (definitive securities) or electronic records (book-entry securities) evidencing ownership of equity (stocks) or debt obligations (bonds).
    • Social regulation: Government-imposed restrictions designed to discourage or prohibit harmful corporate behavior (such as polluting the environment or putting workers in dangerous work situations) or to encourage behavior deemed socially desirable.
    • Social Security: A U.S. government pension program that provides benefits to retirees based on their own and their employers' contributions to the program while they were working.

  • National Security Argument

    • National security protectionist arguments pertain to the risk of dependency upon other nations for economic sustainability.
    • This is a fundamental foundation for the trade protectionism logic from a national security perspective.
    • While this looks purely economic, it has important social and humanitarian implications as well.
    • Combining these ideas, it is clear that there is substantial national security value to trade protectionism.
    • Evaluate the arguments in favor of the use of trade protectionism in the security industry

  • The Relationship Between Risk and Return and the Security Market Line

    • The security market line is useful to determine if an asset being considered for a portfolio offers a reasonable expected return for risk.
    • The CAPM is a model for pricing an individual security or portfolio.
    • For individual securities, the security market line (SML) and its relation to expected return and systematic risk (beta) depicts an individual security in relation to their security risk class .
    • Individual securities are plotted on the SML graph.
    • The security market line depicts the the return on a security relative to its own risk.