Talk:Social Security in the USA

Social Security

has an older history in many other countries besides the USA, you might consider to rename the article to Social Seurity in the US. Contrary to social security in Sweden, the UK, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France etc etc etc. Robert Tito |  Talk  21:00, 17 May 2007 (CDT)

Request for name change of article

The name of this article is quite wrong. First, it discusses only the USA. Secondly, it fails to explain the major distinctions between social insurance, social assistance and the all-inclusive social security. The article here belongs as a subsidiary page of the USA.

We need a generic article on social security to replace this, with some internationally-relevant analysis. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 13:24, 23 May 2007 (CDT)

The article has now been renamed, leaving an empty page for a generic account of Social Security. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 07:28, 30 May 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, this move is absolutely wrong! It would be like changing the article on the New Deal to New deal. In the USA, the whole *program* is called Social Security, with Caps on *both* words. Trust me.... Hayford Peirce 17:31, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

OK, I'll move it back. It was for consistency with "Social security" as the name of the other article--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 17:44, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

Apparently, we trust you, Hayford, even when you are wrong! ;-)

You are right, of course, that Social Security refers to a U.S. law, but there needs to be room somewhere for social security which is also an internationally recognized term, with quite different meanings in different countries (some of which refer to social insurance and others have connotations of social solidarity). In the U.S., we tend to refer to the first social insurance programs in Germany as social security also (You'll find the lack of caps in most historical discussions of the matter). (See entries on Otto von Bismarck and Theodor Lohmann). And the first change seemed to me to reflect that. Thus, your analogy with the New Deal is partial and incomplete. (There was no international New Deal, or New deal for that matter, although the depression was quite international in scope.) In the U.S., S.S. refers to a specific piece of legislation (The Social Security Act of 1935. As Amended) first adopted in 1935 and amended (quite literally hundreds of times) since then. But there is no Social Security program per se. The Act contains literally dozens of programs NONE of which are named Social Security. The original Act included numerous programs not only social insurance, but also remnants of the Sheppard-Towner Act (1920) and assorted social assistance programs (some of which were taken out in the Welfare Reform of 1995 and some of which remain. The act also includes titles for Medicare, Medicaid and the defunct Title XX Social Service programs.

I suggest we hold off on any more title changes until we see what the contents of articles look like and then get the correct titles (and capitalizations) to fit the content. Roger Lohmann 18:30, 30 September 2007 (CDT)

Well, I'll leave it to you Americans to decide what your social security is called :-) It is probably a mistake to think that the name of a law is also the name of something, albeit a common error. Anyway, I'll keep out of it! --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 18:42, 30 September 2007 (CDT)

Renaming again considered

It's called "Social Security", capital "S" capital "S"; it even says so on the card that a person is issued when they are registered. The term refers to a set of laws and policies embodied in the Social Security Act and administered by the Social Security Administration. But, I also believe that the term "social security" is used internationally to describe a set of domestic social policies (of which "Social Security" is one), so I'm okay with the page social security. Since the wiki is case sensitive, I don't understand what is wrong with naming this article Social Security. Proper disambiguation will direct a reader to social security or Social Security if either is the set of policies for which they are looking. Absent any other program in any other country called specifically "Social Security" (caps), then Social Security quite correctly refers to the U.S. program. I'll be moving this article absent dissent and discussion. Russell D. Jones 13:22, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Are you *sure* that the wiki search is case sensitive? I thought that it *used* to be, particularly at WP years ago, but now I'm not so sure. If, as you say, Social Security will go to a different article than social security (or even Social security), then I would be all for your suggestion. Hayford Peirce 16:11, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I didn't think of that, Hayford. The search engine either does not recognize capitalization or it does not report page redirects. social security will take a reader to the "social security" page. Social Security will take a reader to the "Social Security" page which is currently a redirect to social security. There is no difference between "Social security" and "social security" as the Mediawiki software automatically capitalizes the first word of all page titles; both terms would take a reader to the exact same page. Russell D. Jones 20:38, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Crap, now that I'm thinking about this, it goes against the system for disambiguation. Social security should be a disambiguation page that points a reader to either Social Security (policy) or Social Security (U.S.). Russell D. Jones 20:41, 23 May 2010 (UTC)