The trend toward more integrated systems

World War II proved to be an important turning point in the history of social security. To be sure, social security programs had experienced substantial development in industrial countries in the 50 years since the adoption of social insurance in Bismarck's Germany in the 1880s, but the programs were often limited in coverage, provided meager benefits, and were fragmented in the sense that coverage and eligibility varied from one program to another (Laroque, 1948). Morever, under the strain of the Great Depression of the 1930s, unemployment insurance systems (where they existed) broke down and had to be supplemented or replaced by assistance and relief programs.

Allied leaders sensed that the will to fight and win the war among their peoples depended not only on the determination to overcome the Axis Powers but also on the conviction that life would be more rewarding after the war than in the difficult years of the 1930s.

Even before the United States entered the war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, attempting to persuade Congress to step up aid to the Allied Powers, was one of the first to give voice to a set of wartime objectives, when he proclaimed the “Four Freedoms” on January 6, 1941. They included freedom of speech, religious freedom, freedom from want, and freedom from fear (Filler, 1964, 241–2).

Much the same aims were expressed in a joint declaration, known as the Atlantic Charter, by the President and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain when they met secretly off the Newfoundland coast in August 1941.