Recaps Social Security as a new concept, ‘that every citizen had a right to a reasonable standard of living and that it was a community responsibility to ensure that its members were safeguarded against the economic ills against which they could not protect themselves’. Details the rates, payments, and qualifications of each monetary benefit (superannuation, age, widows’, orphans’, family, invalids’, miners’, sickness, unemployment, emergency, war pensions, and war veteran’s allowances). Outlines the options for and availability of free medical and health services (medical benefits, pharmaceutical benefits, hospital benefits, maternity benefits) and the total expenditure on each in 1948. Tracks the growth and change of each benefit from 1929 to 1948 and explains NZ’s reciprocal benefit agreements with Australia, Great Britain, and Northern Ireland.