The Trillion Dollar Hustle

"Freedom from Want" was how Franklin Roosevelt described it. And for a good piece of the American public during World War II, Social Security-understood in the broadest sense-was among the country's noblest war aims. For them the connection between the common struggle of war and the common struggle of everyday life was self-evident. In 1944, Roosevelt proposed an "Economic Bill of Rights" for the postwar era; echoes of the idea could be heard in the G.I. Bill of Rights, the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and President Truman's plan for a national health program. In Britain the war's ferment brought the Beveridge Report, a set of comprehensive social-security proposals so resoundingly popular that they became the foundation of the British welfare state. Both at home and abroad the Allies believed they were building a better world.

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