CHAPTER 9THE DISAPPEARING SOCIAL SAFETY NET
AFTER THE END of World War II, American corporations and their workers forged a compact that provided a safety net for employees and their families. The standard employment deal at a major corporation included health insurance for employees and their dependents and a guaranteed pension payout at retirement. The system was geared toward companies that expected to last indefinitely, and employees who expected to stay there for their entire careers. While this might have made sense in the decades immediately following World War II, when big American companies saw an endless horizon of growth, the strains in the system began to appear in the 1980s. It was costly for companies to hold up their end of the ...
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