So, Medicare and Social Security are considered “entitlement programs.” (Maybe other programs – Medicaid? – are included in that term, but I’m really only interested in Medicare and Social Security.) It’s my understanding that the reason they are called Entitlement Programs is because people are entitled to receive them. (I know – well, DUH!)
But the term “entitlement” seems to have negative connotations these days. I think people hear it and think about being accused of having a false sense of entitlement. Or maybe they flash back to hearing some authority figure tell them, in a voice dripping with scorn, “So you think you’re entitled to x? Really?”
So let’s come up with another term, one that gives the sense that these are programs that are owed to people. Best I’ve been able to come with is Endowment Programs, but that term seems to lose the sense that they aren’t just being given, they’ve been earned by the fact that people have paid into them.
(Probably not necessary, but I’ll stipulate that I do understand that most of the money people have paid into the programs has by design been used to pay benefits to those already receiving them. If you’d like to discuss whether people are actually entitled to receive SS or Medicare, please take it to another thread. Or look up one of the threads that I suspect already exist on the topic.)
“Entitlement programs” refers to the entire panoply of programs for which eligibility is determined by reference to some pre-determined criteria rather than by any sort of selection. If you meet the criteria on the list, you are entitled to receive X, and the budget for X will automatically expand to pay you. (Other programs, for example most federal grants, have a pre-determined budget and will select from among the applicants in a competitive process until the budget limit is reached.)
Not all entitlement programs are “earned” in the same sense that Social Security is. For example, food stamps are an entitlement: if you have income below a certain level and meet various other requirements, you are entitled to receive food stamps, regardless of whether you ever paid any taxes to fund them. If you were honorably-discharged from the Armed Forces, you are entitled to certain veterans’ benefits; you earned those with your feet, but didn’t necessarily contribute any money. I don’t think “endowment” would apply to these sorts of programs.
IMHO - Unfortunately, the term “entitlement program” has been hijacked as a political term, usually intended to be a “dog-whistle” to indicate “those people” getting “free stuff” paid for with “MY tax dollars”. I use scare-quotes to highlight the emotionally charged use of this language in partisan political discourse.
In that context, I can understand the desire to come up with a new term, in order to take back the original, politically neutral, meaning.
OK, then let’s come up with a term that specifically refers to Social Security and Medicare. Something pithy enough it can be used on a sign for a protest. “Hey, Ryan, Hands off my _____!”
Exactly. Or maybe even leaning towards implying that these programs are earned (which in some ways they are).
It’s like this – you can be for legalized abortion or against it, but few actually term their beliefs that way. No, you are Pro Choice or Pro Life. We need a term for Social Security and Medicare that underscores that these are not programs for “those people” getting “free stuff.”
I would say that making an affirmative claim that the recipients of these program have earned their benefits, and then following it immediately with an exhortation that no one argue otherwise is not starting the conversation off in good faith.
I think your search for a new, better label for these programs is ultimately not going to accomplish anything, because you’re essentially just running into the euphemism treadmill solution. If you’re not familiar with the concept, the “euphemism treadmill” is a phrase that describes how we continually get new terms to refer to things because old terms become loaded with negative connotations. But this is at best a temporary solution, since the new terms quickly take on that same negative association, since the underlying problem isn’t resolved.
An example that you’re probably aware of is with words used to describe people who aren’t smart.
“Idiot” and “imbecile” used to be technical terms, then became insults.
Retarded was then used, but I understand that it’s no longer generally acceptable.
Developmentally delayed might be the current descriptive?
Of course, no amount of changing the language is going to fix the underlying issue, which is that being smart is generally preferable to the alternative, and implying that someone isn’t smart is an effective way to insult them.
So, circling back to Social Security and Medicare, whatever phrase you come up with is going to take on the same negative aspect about “those people” getting “free stuff” unless you change the underlying issue, which is that people (rightly or wrongly) believe that. Based on your parenthetical disclaimer above, I think you (maybe) misunderstand the primary reason people believe that, but I will not argue it here since you’ve asked me not to.
The search for a magical phrase with a politically neutral meaning is hopeless. Once language starts actually being used, it gets politics attached to it.
start referring to ALL entitlement programs, as entitlement programs.
Including all the ones that the rich people and corporations get.
Police protection for property is an Entitlement Program.
Military protection of trade routes and transportation is an Entitlement Program.
Having top government officials negotiate trade agreements to make it cheaper and easier for private enterprise to make money off of foreigners is an Entitlement Program.
Having television and radio programming modified and censored by government officials in order to please certain people is an Entitlement Program.
Having taxes collected and used to pay for all the above Entitelements for the Rich by government officials, is ALSO an Entitlement Program.
Actually, when you properly label things, there’s a hell of a lot more moolah going from our pockets into the RICH PEOPLE’S Entitlement Programs, than there is going into any of ours.
For starters, any affirmative claim that all Social Security recipients have earned those benefits is going to run headlong into the fact that ten million SocSec beneficiaries are drawing on SOMEBODY ELSE’S record (that is, on the earning record of a parent, a spouse, or more rarely a child), not their own earnings.
Doesn’t matter. If I enter into a life insurance contract and pay the premiums, then on my death the proceeds are due and payable, and anybody arguing that my dependents are not entitled to receive them because they didn’t pay the premiums will get short shrift.
Same goes for social security. If payment of the social security contributions give rise to an entitlement to survivors/dependents benefits, then that’s an entitlement which is secured by the payment of the contributions.
Social Security is not an entitlement in that sense. If you meet the currently applicable criteria, you’re in, but eligibility can be limited or revoked at any time by Congress, regardless of what you may have paid into the program thus far.
Beyoond that, I think slash2k is simply making the point that one’s pay-in is not set aside to be used for one’s pay-out when the time comes. Current money paid in is used to fund current benefits and other government operations, and benefits for future retirees will be paid by future people paying in.
In addition to what Tom Tildrum said, the argument seems to be that beneficiaries did something to EARN the benefits, as opposed to those other people drawing other kinds of benefits who don’t deserve them because they didn’t work for them. So you worked to ensure your survivors would have benefits, but what exactly did your survivors themselves do (besides be born or be married)?
Social Security isn’t a contract; the payment of contributions doesn’t “secure” anything. You’re not entitled to any benefits because you paid in, but because on a certain date you worked X number of years at an average salary of Y. Congress has the power to change X and Y at any time, and if you (or your survivors/dependents) don’t meet the current criteria, you don’t get anything. The entitlement isn’t based on payment but on meeting pre-determined criteria, just like food stamps or Pell grants. In the case of SocSec, you can take actions (working in covered employment, e.g.) that will help you meet the current criteria, but you have no assurance whatsoever that the criteria will be the same in 2027 or 2047.
I accept that, of course. But if the survivors/dependents benefits are actually in payment, then obviously Congress hasn’t changed the eligiblity criteria. So this doesn’t really go to my main point. If I receive life insurance that my deceased spouse paid the premiums on, or if I receive a pension because my deceased spouse paid the social security contributions that the system requires him to have paid in order to pay out a survivors pension, in both cases I am now in receipt of something that is provided on account of what my spouse did, not on account of what I did.
I’m not sure exactly what you are saying here. Congress has changed the criteria through the years, although generally in the direction of expanding them (and the courts have likewise had an effect: widowers, for example, were not eligible for the same benefits as were paid to widows with minor children, until the Supreme Court ruling in Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld (1975)).
I don’t think we really disagree here, except on the fringes. You are entitled to survivor benefits because of what somebody else did, not because you yourself “earned” them.
Our only disagreement would seem to be on the technicalities. Life insurance is a contract; you are eligible for benefits based on the contract in force as of the date of your spouse’s death. With SocSec, you are eligible based on the requirements in force today; changes in the law after your spouse’s death may cause you to gain or lose eligibility. (For example, in the 1960s and 70s surviving children could receive benefits up until their 22nd birthday if they were attending school full-time; now, they get cut off a month before they turn 19. Their parent’s contribution didn’t change, but the law did.)
“Welfare” has even more of a negative connotation these days than “entitlement programs.” Even worse when you put “social” in front of it, sounds a lot like that dastardly socialism!
In our current social-linguistic paradigm, EVERY term, by definition, will (usually quickly) become associated with negativism. “Entitlement programs” is itself a euphemism for the various terms that preceded it, which, of course, assumed negative connotations.
Euphemisms have also demanded “new terms” for schools, hospitals and prisons. (Attendance centers, medical arts centers, correctional and rehabilitation facilities.) Somebody said "Let’s come up with a new term for ‘schools’. And children who will never learn to tie their shoes are “special”.
Social cohesion will break down when there is no longer any vocabulary that carries our communications from one generation to another. The whole purpose of language is to transmit ideas intergenerationally, and when it needs to be repealed every generation, is no longer of any value. Books are no longer understood when they contain language not current to their generation of readers, if not outright banned for that fatal defect.
None of the programs you mention are anything that any individual is entitled to receive, which is what “entitlement program” means. The Supreme Court, for instance, has ruled that no specific individual can expect that the police will protect him or her from a crime, and you can’t sue if they don’t stop your house from being robbed or you being mugged. Military protection is done for the country as a whole - nobody is ineligible because they don’t make enough money, etc.
I don’t think that government, at all levels, spends more on police or protecting trade than it does on entitlement programs like Medicaid and the EITC and so forth.
Do you have a cite for it being a euphemism? As far as I know, it’s just a simple descriptive term describing programs where ‘you’re automatically entitled to this benefit if you meet certain criteria’.