Resilience and the Contract of Social Insurance

Reid Cramer wrote about the role of social security in building resilience for New America's digital magazine on resilience.

The drive along the busy road just north of the Capital Beltway was familiar. The address of my destination was not. I waited for an opening, took the turn across traffic, and pulled into the parking lot of a nondescript office building I’d never noticed before. I made my way to the second floor, entered a crowded waiting room, and unexpectedly caught a whiff of the industrial solvents used to clean the linoleum floors. The room was bustling and full of humanity—young, old, and everything in between. Some waited by themselves in silence. Others huddled together, speaking a variety of languages. I could hear English, Spanish, Amharic, and others I didn’t recognize. Although I wasn’t sure why any of these people were there, somehow we had all arrived at the same place: the U.S. Social Security office in Silver Spring, Maryland. As for me, I had come to tell the government that my wife, the love of my life, had recently passed away.

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