Today's installment in our Social Security series was about the language used in discussing the issue. Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg joined Brian to discuss the words "insurance," "reform," "trust fund" and "privatization" among others.

To start the segment off, Brian spoke briefly with Pierre Epstein, the son of Abraham Epstein, who was the first person to use the words "Social Security" publicly in the United States. Mr. Epstein happened to call into an earlier segment on the origins of the program and Brian invited him back today to explain more fully the role his father played in popularizing the name. He's just finished a book on his father's role in the creation of Social Security in the United States and here's a selection from an email he sent us:

Abraham Epstein was asked by the SOCIAL SECURITY BOARD in 1941 what he meant when he first used the words, and the exchange of letters is revealing. SOCIAL SECURITY published them in a 1992 article titled, "How we got our name."
"I insisted on the term," Abraham Epstein wrote, "because by that time I had a clear conception of the differences which lay between the concept of social insurance as worked out by Bismarck in Germany and the conception of social protection as elaborated in England. I definitely did not want 'social insurance' because this would give it the German twist of actuarial insurance...I did not want 'economic' security because what I hoped for was... that type of security that would promote the welfare of society as a whole. No improvement in the conditions of labor can come except as the security of the people as a whole is advanced."
The key point in his idea, I believe, is that SOCIAL SECURITY is a means of protection for American society as a whole, not just for the individual.

Posted by leboheme at 03:51 PM