The USA has a comfortable safety net for the disadvantaged and is therefore a social democracy.
Social programs in the United States
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The Social Security Administration, created in 1935, was the first major federal welfare agency and continues to be the most prominent.
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Social programs in the United States are
welfare subsidies designed to meet needs of the American population. Federal and state welfare programs include cash assistance, healthcare and medical provisions, food assistance, housing subsidies, energy and utilities subsidies, education and childcare assistance, and subsidies and assistance for other basic services. Private provisions from employers, either mandated by policy or voluntary, also provide similar social welfare benefits.
The programs vary in eligibility requirements and are provided by various organizations on a federal, state, local and private level. They help to provide food, shelter, education, healthcare and money to U.S. citizens through
primary and
secondary education, subsidies of college education, unemployment disability insurance, subsidies for eligible low-wage workers, subsidies for housing,
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programbenefits,
pensions for eligible persons and
health insurance programs that cover public employees. The
Social Security system is sometimes considered to be a social aid program and has some characteristics of such programs, but unlike these programs, social security was designed as a self-funded security blanket—so that as the payee pays in (during working years), they are pre-paying for the payments they'll receive back out of the system when they are no longer working.
Medicare is another prominent program, among other healthcare provisions such as
Medicaid and the
State Children's Health Insurance Program.