Administering social security: challenges yesterday and today.

In 2010, the Social Security Administration (SSA) celebrates the 75th anniversary of the passage of the Social Security Act. In those 75 years, SSA has been responsible for programs providing unemployment insurance, child welfare, and supervision of credit unions, among other duties. This article focuses on the administration of the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program, although it also covers some of the other major programs SSA has been tasked with administering over the years-in particular, Medicare, Black Lung benefits, and Supplemental Security Income. The article depicts some of the challenges that have accompanied administering these programs and the steps that SSA has taken to meet those challenges. Whether implementing complex legislation in short timeframes or coping with natural disasters, SSA has found innovative ways to overcome problems and has evolved to meet society's changing needs.

The story of the social security number.

The use of the Social Security number (SSN) has expanded significantly since its inception in 1936. Created merely to keep track of the earnings history of U.S. workers for Social Security entitlement and benefit computation purposes, it has come to be used as a nearly universal identifier. Assigned at birth, the SSN enables government agencies to identify individuals in their records and businesses to track an individual's financial information. This article explores the history and meaning of the SSN and the Social Security card, as well as the Social Security Administration's (SSA's) SSN master file, generally known as the Numident. The article also traces the historical expansion of SSN use and the steps SSA has taken to enhance SSN integrity.

Financing Social Security, 1939-1949: a reexamination of the financing policies of this period.

This article examines the financing history of the U.S. Social Security system during the period starting with the amendments of 1939 and concluding with the amendments of 1950. It reviews the program's financing policies during this period, and in particular, a series of tax-rate "freezes" enacted during this time. The tax-rate schedule codified in the Social Security Act of 1935 was prevented from taking full effect during these years and the rates were "frozen" at their 1935 level for 15 years. This article seeks to explain the policy context of these rate freezes and their impact on the program's long-range financial solvency. Two major findings emerge from this research: 1. One of the most basic tests of any policy proposal involving Social Security is the projected impact of that proposal on the program's short-range and long-range financing. It would be virtually impossible to propose any serious policy change without a certification from the Social Security actuaries regarding the potential impact of such change. Although Congress enacted the 1939-1949 rate freezes in eight separate legislative acts, the legislative history contains no useable long-range actuarial estimates to gauge the impact of the rate freezes on program financing. How and why such an anomalous circumstance could arise is explored here. cies and has discovered that throughout the period from 1939 to 1950, the Social Security program was almost certainly rendered out of long-range actuarial balance by the rate freezes. How such a circumstance could arise, without serious policy debate, is then examined by situating the rate-freeze decisions in the larger frame of Social Security policymaking during this period.