The Social Security Fix Nobody Wants to Talk About | A small tax increase would make the essential national retirement program secure for decades, our columnist says, but lawmakers would have to act
The Social Security Fix Nobody Wants to Talk About | A small tax increase would make the essential national retirement program secure for decades, our columnist says, but lawmakers would have to act
Ah yes, just increase the tax on working people. So simple. Don’t look too closely at the yearly cap that prevents rich people who will never need it from contributing meaningfully. Let’s be careful to not consider a simple progressive tax that would easily correct the issue by putting an unnoticeable tax increase on the very people who are responsible for making sure normal Americans can’t fund their own retirements in the first place.
The article explicitly talks about lifting that cap:
Raising the cap that way — taxing affluent people more and everyone else less — would reduce the 3.5-point tax increase needed to fully fund Social Security to as little as 2.45 points, the Social Security system estimated.
This is the correct answer. They need to remove the cap before doing anything else.
Wouldn't removing the cap just delay the issue? You get more out of SS the more you put in. The cap exists because there is a maximum amount you can get out of SS. If they remove the input cap, then that implies they'd remove the output cap too. In which case, the immediate result is a lot more money flowing into SS, but over time, a whole lot more money will start flowing out, too.
The ultrawealthy should pay for this since they took away our pensions. They wouldn't even notice the amounts missing from their accounts if they didn't have an accountant hired to find it all and make them pissed.
The ultrawealthy should pay for this since they took away our pensions.
Just put another $10k into your 401k. We promise the market will always go up forever and you'll be able to retire on it. It won't be like last time.
Or the time before that, or the time before that...
I can't tell you how many times I've seen my co-workers borderline suicidal because their 401K tanked.
At least take away the contribution cap which limits SS taxes to the first $168k of income.
Nationalize healthcare and boom, so much money saved you can afford it
Best we can do is nothing
"An increase in the 12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax of 3.5 percentage points — half borne by employers and half by employees — is all that’s needed to keep full Social Security benefits flowing in the 2030s and beyond, Professor Munnell explained in a telephone conversation."
You don't have to increase the percentage with-held AT ALL.
The 12.4% payroll tax only applies to the first $168,600 of earned income.
Source: https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc751
So what you do is eliminate that cap, like we ALREADY do for the Medicare tax.
In fact, if you removed the cap AND applied the tax to other forms of income, such as capital gains, we could probably reduce the percentage and bring in more money.
Remove taxes going to the military complex and tax the rich appropriately. Stop putting tax burdens on the middle and lower classes
Upward spiral.
So would taxing the rich, like people that own the NYT