I would like to recommend that you read "The Culture of Contentment" by John Kenneth Galbraith. He talks about why social security was passed in the 1930s and how social stability is affected by widespread unemployment.
Galbraith makes the argument, which convinced me, that without social security there would have been a Communist revolution in the United States. However, it's been at least 20 years since I read it, so I may not remember it exactly.