social insurance

noun

Updated on: 21 Apr 2018

Definition of social insurance

: protection of the individual against economic hazards (such as unemployment, old age, or disability) in which the government participates or enforces the participation of employers and affected individuals

Recent Examples of social insurance from the Web

In his perfect world, Republicans would run on tax cuts, carry out deep cuts to social insurance programs, and everyone in America would be devouring editorials from The Wall Street Journal.

— jonathan chait, Daily Intelligencer, "Fanatic, Fraud, Factotum: The Rise and Fall of Paul Ryan," 11 Apr. 2018
After the income tax, the most important revenue raisers are for social insurance, such as Social Security and Medicare.

— laura saunders, WSJ, "Top 20% of Americans Will Pay 87% of Income Tax," 6 Apr. 2018
Treating Social Security as something that can be borrowed against suggests that it can be treated as an individual account rather than a social insurance program.

— New York Times, "Why a Republican Plan for Paid Leave Has Stirred Concern About Social Security," 20 Feb. 2018
Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson took on oil and rail cartels, and advocated social insurance on behalf of the man in the street.

— The Economist, "Political insurgentsLearning from Europe’s populists," 3 Feb. 2018
The Pew Research Center, using 2014 data, looked at average taxes and social insurance contributions as a percentage of gross income for different family types.

— glenn kessler, Washington Post, "Trump’s still-wrong claim that the U.S. is the world’s highest-taxed developed nation," 18 Oct. 2017
There is also the cost of cuts to other agencies to free up money for disasters, and the burden of increased spending on social insurance and safety-net programs, such as food stamps.

— annie lowrey, The Atlantic, "The Most Expensive Weather Year Ever," 20 Dec. 2017
Welfare and social insurance taxes cost between 40% and 100% of a paycheck in China.

— lingling wei, WSJ, "Beijing Develops Plan to Counter Trump Tax Overhaul," 11 Dec. 2017
Names, birth dates, phone numbers and email addresses may have been exposed, but addresses, social insurance numbers and any banking information weren’t, the lender said.

— doug alexander, Bloomberg.com, "National Bank Says Website Error May Have Affected 400 Customers," 21 Sep. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'social insurance.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

First Known Use of social insurance

1890

in the meaning defined above

See Words from the same year

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Law Dictionary

social insurance

noun

legal Definition of social insurance

: insurance of the individual against certain hazards (as unemployment, old age, and disability) that is undertaken, facilitated, or enforced by government