This dissertation is concerned with the distributive role of the welfare state in the OECD countries. The mainstream studies have often concentrated on the redistributive effect of fiscal policy on different income brackets. This study examines the net benefit/burden position of the working population with respect to state expenditures and taxes in the postwar period. The working population receives benefits in cash and in kind from state expenditures and pays taxes. The "net social wage" is the difference between benefits received and the taxes paid by the whole population of the working class. The goal of this dissertation is to provide a comparative analysis of social welfare expenditures directed toward workers, the taxes paid by worker, and the recent trend of the "net social wage" in major OECD countries. The larger scope of the study enables us to derive more general conclusion about the overall trend of the social wage in the OECD countries and its possible transformation in light of the recent neoconservative challenge to the welfare state development. The findings of this study will allow us to address four major issues. First, this study provides an empirical foundation for analyzing the growing significance of "social wage" or the collectivization of consumption and the share of social or collective consumption in total consumption of the working population in the postwar period. Second, this study discusses how the expansion of social expenditures and the trend of the "net social wage" can be linked to other aspects of societal development. The findings of this study allow us to determine to what extent changing economic constraints and the shifts in social and political conditions have shaped up the development of welfare programs. Third, the findings of this study provide an analytical foundation to evaluate the neoconservative claim that the welfare state is itself the source of economic stagnation that leads to the crisis of the welfare state. In other words, economic crisis renders the welfare state unaffordable. The evidence provided in this study can be used to determine whether the growth of social expenditures and transfer payments have led to the neoconservative proposition of government "overload" or the radical left expression of "fiscal crisis of the state." Lastly, such a comparative study is particularly interesting, since there has been a discussion of the retrenchment of the welfare states in virtually all major OECD countries in the recent decades. The broader scope of our study provides us with the opportunity to offer a comparative analysis of how different OECD countries have responded to the pressures on the welfare state due to the conservative challenge, increasing economic constraints, and their possible loss of autonomy over welfare policy in the face of the overwhelming effect of globalization. This study also discusses how social policies have performed in the presence of the rising inequalities in the recent decades.