Other, general social insurance

As the Academy gears up for our 31^st annual policy conference, Regenerating Social Insurance for Millennials and the Millennium, I am thinking back to what we have learned from our last few conferences.

Our 2016 conference premiered the Academy’s focus on inequality. Keynote speaker Marc Pearson, Deputy Director of Employment, Labor and Social Affairs at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), reminded us that:

In a recent article in Governing, J.B. Wogan asks, “Is it time to stop saying ‘Safety Net?’” 

He reports that several national groups representing public agencies and non-profits that administer food, housing, and health care benefit programs have stopped using the term “safety net” to describe these programs. He notes that “(d)ropping the term safety net is part of the human services groups' broader strategy to get the public and policymakers to think of human services as investments in the community that boost the economy, reduce crime and improve public health.”

On October 16, 2017, Members of the National Academy of Social Insurance, as well as other experts and supporters, gathered in Cambridge, Massachusetts to discuss our nation’s social insurance programs and how they are addressing – and could better address – the challenges posed by growing inequality.

The Academy’s Board Chair, Bill Rodgers, Professor of Public Policy and Chief Economist at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, sat down with Professor Larry Summers for a fireside-style chat.

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, let us recall the contributions to our nation’s vibrant social insurance infrastructure by those women who are no longer with us, but whose legacies remain strong.

Among these often unsung heroines are: