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The Social Insurance System in the US

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FRAMING PAPER | JUNE 2021 WWW.HAMILTONPROJECT.ORG The Social Insurance System in the U.S.: Policies to Protect Workers and Families Mitchell Barnes, Lauren Bauer, Wendy Edelberg, Sara Estep, Robert Greenstein, and Moriah Macklin ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors are grateful to Jessica Banthin, Kristen Broady, Indivar Dutta-Gupta, Matthew Fiedler, Will Fischer, Este Griffith, Bradley Hardy, Joseph Llobera, Kriston McIntosh, Zachary Parolin, Isabel Sawhill, Judy Solomon, and Danilo Trisi for insightful comments and input and to Parolin, Trisi, Matthew Saenz, and Sophie Collyer for running and providing analysis on the Supplemental Poverty Measure. Eliana Buckner, Ronnie Clevenstine, Stephanie Lu, Sophia Mariam, Brie Nicker, Elisabeth Raczek, and Winnie Yee provided excellent research assistance. Lastly, the authors would like to thank Jeanine Rees for all of her help with the graphic design and layout of this document. MISSION STATEMENT The Hamilton Project seeks to advance America’s promise of opportunity, prosperity, and growth. We believe that today’s increasingly competitive global economy demands public policy ideas commensurate with the challenges of the 21st Century. The Project’s economic strategy reflects a judgment that long-term prosperity is best achieved by fostering economic growth and broad participation in that growth, by enhancing individual economic security, and by embracing a role for effective government in making needed public investments. Our strategy calls for combining public investment, a secure social safety net, and fiscal discipline. In that framework, the Project puts forward innovative proposals from leading economic thinkers—based on credible evidence and experience, not ideology or doctrine—to introduce new and effective policy options into the national debate. The Project is named after Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first Treasury Secretary, who laid the foundation for the modern American economy. Hamilton stood for sound fiscal policy, believed that broad-based opportunity for advancement would drive American economic growth, and recognized that “prudent aids and encouragements on the part of government” are necessary to enhance and guide market forces. The guiding principles of the Project remain consistent with these views. The Social Insurance System in the U.S. Policies to Protect Workers and Families Mitchell Barnes The Hamilton Project at The Brookings Institution Lauren Bauer The Hamilton Project and Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution Wendy Edelberg The Hamilton Project and Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution Sara Estep The Hamilton Project at The Brookings Institution Robert Greenstein The Hamilton Project and Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution Moriah Macklin The Hamilton Project at The Brookings Institution June 2021 Abstract This paper examines the U.S. social insurance system, which we define broadly to include both programs supported by dedicated taxes and other federal programs that provide income support, assistance in meeting basic needs, or services to improve economic opportunity. The paper considers the social insurance system as a whole as well as its component parts, providing an overview of major federal programs in the areas of education and workforce development, health, income support, nutrition, and housing. The paper covers how the social insurance system is organized, how eligibility is determined and who benefits, how the benefits and services are delivered, and how the system affects poverty and inequality. We focus primarily on the system as it operated prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also look at how various programs respond to economic downturns. Coming at a time when policymakers will start shifting their focus from using the social insurance system to provide relief from the pandemic and recession to considering what changes should be made in the system on an ongoing basis, the paper also reprises an array of proposals to strengthen the system in various ways that The Hamilton Project has commissioned in recent years. The Hamilton Project • Brookings ii The Social Insurance System in the U.S. Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1. An Overview of the Social Insurance System ................................................2 Chapter 2. High-level Descriptions of Social Insurance Programs .............................. 17 Endnotes ..........................................................................................................................40 References ....................................................................................................................... 41 Appendix A. Data Sources and Definitions ....................................................................50 Appendix B. Frequently Used Acronyms .......................................................................52 The Hamilton Project • Brookings iii The Social Insurance System in the U.S. Introduction he social insurance system in the United States, im- (4) nutrition; and (5) shelter. We also consider how pro- plemented by federal, state, and local government grams operate during economic downturns as well as in agencies, provides protection against what President more normal economic times; we focus on the structure of TFranklin Delano Roosevelt called the vicissitudes of life: dis- the social insurance system as it was prior to the onset of the ability, the loss of earnings in old age, being laid off, and oth- COVID-19 pandemic. er setbacks. The social insurance system also provides sup- port to help people meet their basic needs and gain the skills Through this exercise, avenues for improvement and reform and services they need to enter and succeed in the work- emerge. The paper reviews an array of Hamilton Project force. It encompasses a wide range of government programs, policy proposals to improve the social insurance system, in- from the Social Security system, to Unemployment Insur- cluding how various supports could be better targeted, how ance (UI), to early childhood education. Nearly everyone in programs could be made more efficient, and how the system the United States directly benefits from the social insurance could better reach the most vulnerable families and individ- system at some point in their lives. Moreover, everyone in- uals during economic downturns and during more normal directly benefits from it—either from knowing the system times. Recent Hamilton reports have advanced proposals in would be there for them during some unexpected hardship such areas as UI, Social Security, health insurance coverage, or simply because it helps to support the overall economy. paid leave, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Earned Income Tax Credit, housing, childcare, In framing this paper, we explore how the social insur- education and workforce development, and Temporary As- ance system is organized, how eligibility is determined sistance to Needy Families (TANF). and who benefits, how the benefits and services are deliv- ered, and how the system reduces poverty and inequality. This paper comes at an important juncture, as policymak- We define the system broadly to include both benefits and ers shift in the period ahead from using the social insurance services programs, and both programs without income lim- system to provide widespread relief during the COVID-19 its and programs targeted by income or other factors. The pandemic and related recession to designing and institut- paper examines the system as a whole and its component ing (as well as reauthorizing) reforms that will strengthen parts, providing an overview of the major government so- the social insurance system so that it can make the economy cial insurance programs in the categories of (1) education more resilient and better provide protection from the vicis- and workforce development; (2) health; (3) income support; situdes of life. The Hamilton Project • Brookings 1 The Social Insurance System in the U.S. Chapter 1. An Overview of the Social Insurance System his chapter offers our working definition of the social the annual appropriations process, and programs that are insurance system and provides an overview of how it funded outside the appropriations process but that are not works. We describe how the federal, state and local entitlements. We do not, however, include as social insur- Tgovernments provide benefits through the social insurance ance various benefits that employers (rather than the gov- system and who, on the whole, receives those benefits. We ernment) may provide, such as employer-based health-care also describe evidence on how social insurance programs coverage or retirement plans. We focus on federal programs, reduce poverty and income inequality in the United States. many of which are administered in whole or in part by states In a box, we offer brief highlights of the major programs that (or in some cases, localities) and some of which are jointly make up that system. funded by the federal and state governments with both lev- els of government playing a role in setting the programs’ eli- gibility criteria and/or the benefit levels. As a result, benefit coverage for a number of the programs (and gaps in cover- What Is Social Insurance? age) varies across the country. There is no uniformly agreed-on definition of social insur- Some social insurance programs, such as Social Securi- ance, but two definitions—one
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