rance (OASDI) now officially called Retirement, Survivors, and Disability Insurance and Hospital Insurance (HI), or Medicare. These programs provide direct payments to maintain the income of retired or disabled workers, their dependents, and their survivors and to defray some of the medical expenses of retirees and their spouses at age 65 and older. U.S. social security programs are financially self sustaining--they are funded on a pay as you go basis through payroll taxes collected in equal amounts from employees and employers during the workers' years of active employment in accordance with the Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA). Participation in social security is compulsory, and benefits are paid as an "earned right," or entitlement. For these reasons, social security is a form of social insurance, distinguished in the public mind from social welfare, or direct grants of aid to the indigent, based on need and financed by general tax revenues (The Academic American Encyclopedia online edition).
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