section_path: Benefits
section_name: Benefits
paragraph_text: Benefits
  
  German chancellor Otto von Bismarck created the world's first comprehensive government social safety net in the 1880s, providing for old age pensions.
  
  In the United States of America, and the United Kingdom, 65 (UK 60 for women) was traditionally the age of retirement with full old age benefits.
  
  In 2003, the age at which a United States citizen became eligible for full Social Security benefits began to increase gradually, and will continue to do so until it reaches 67 in 2027. Full retirement age for Social Security benefits for people retiring in 2012 is age 66. In the United Kingdom, the state pension age for men and women will rise to 66 in 2020 with further increases scheduled after that.
  
  Originally, the purpose of old age pensions was to prevent elderly people from being reduced to beggary, which is still common in some underdeveloped countries, but growing life expectancies and older populations have brought into question the model under which pension systems were designed. By 1990, the United States was spending 30 per cent of its budget on the elderly, compared with 2 per cent on education. The dominant perception of the American old age population changed from "needy" and "worthy" to "powerful" and "greedy", old people getting more than their share of the nation's resources. However, in 2011, using a Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), the old age American poverty rate was measured as 15.9%.