Open Access

Christian Lammert

• The privatization of Old Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance was a top priority on president Bush’s domestic political agenda. Although Bush’s reform initiative has failed and president Obama has declared not to privatize social security, the system of public old age security in the United States is still in crisis, mainly because of demographic factors and the ensuing financial problems but also because of the recent and deep economic recession in the United States. This article reviews the initiative of the Bush-Administration to partially privatize social security and analyzes the main objectives behind Bush policy as well as the main arguments against and obstacles to it. By placing Bush politics of privatizing social security in a broader context of comparative welfare state reform, this article discusses the consequences of privatizing social security systems on equality and poverty, as well as on the legitimacy of the political system in general.