Easy cure for the Social Security issue..This is a no brainer.

[Peacetrain]

. lift the caps... and stop cutting the taxes for the top 1/2 of 1 percent..no need to limit anyone's benefits.. and to all who are younger than me.. we went through this same issue in the 80's and I was in my 20's... and we lifted the caps to 110,000 I think.. is the top.. could be wrong about that.. but it is not that high.. any money you make after that cap top you pay no SS taxes.. just lift the damn caps.. because you sure as hell do not want Grandma and Grandpa moving in with you because their benefits got cut.. and the one group we are all destined to become a part of if no illness or accident or crime takes us away is that of the elderly.. that gray haired old fart that is driving you crazy in the line at the store etc.. that is your future.. it sure sneaks up on you fast too.. trust me.. I am flabbergasted about how fast time went..

[moose65]

1. I think the ceiling increases a little each year

For 2019, it's almost 133,000.

I support lifting that, but we also have to remember the reason the cap is there - we didn't want millionaires to be collecting Social Security checks of 10,000 a month or more. If the cap is lifted, we also have to ensure that the maximum possible benefit isn't tens of thousands of dollars a month!

[Peacetrain]

2. I understand what you are saying.. but if you contribute you should be able to

get your SS.. its a defined benefit program, its something we choose to pay for.. You do not have to pay into SS if you are self employed etc.. its great program..never meant to be the entire retirement but for some it is.. that is just a fact.. so I am okay with it if the ultra rich pay in with a percentage of their income they get their SS .. we need to get away from the idea that it is a charity like the republicans are trying to promote.. thank you for the update on the amount.. 133 thousand..good to know

[moose65]

3. Right

The wealthy should still collect their SS, but the maximum benefit needs to be capped. If someone with millions of dollars paid in also gets millions of dollars back, then lifting the cap wouldn't accomplish anything.

[Peacetrain]

4. Excellent point!!

I see what you are saying..

[SCantiGOP]

14. Two mistakes in info posted here so far

There is a cap on monthly benefits, which is currently less than $2,900. So even if you contributed $100 million you couldn’t draw more than that.
Also, the cap is not for the top 1/2 of 1%. At about $133,000, the cap impacts about 6% of all wage earners per year.

I’m not arguing with the points being made here; I am definitely in favor of either removing the cap or increasing it to somewhere around $1/2 million per year, but posters should get the facts straight before drawing conclusions.

[moose65]

25. I said we need to make sure the cap stays!

I could see a bunch of Republicans saying “If we lift the ceiling on the taxable income, then we should also life the maximum earnings cap” or some such baloney as that.

I’m not sure I understand your second point. The earnings to be in the top 10% start at around 120,000. To be in the top 5% it’s right at 300,000. And the 1% starts at around 720,000.

[MadDAsHell]

45. I agree we lift the cap, but I don't agree it's baloney to lift the earnings.

To ignore that is to ignore elementary level math. Social Security is insurance, and that's how all insurance works.
The greater the premium, the greater your possible benefit.

Why would Social Security be any different?

[forgotmylogin]

47. The people who benefit from the contribution caps are still eligible for SS, right?

I guess I understand that SS can't and isn't going to pay you the same million-dollar salary you made before you were paying in, but this seems like a way for the prosperous to help support our seniors and pay their fair share. Keeping SS nicely solvent for the foreseeable future is a good thing.

Like Liz Warren says, for rich people, it's "two pennies of every dollar over a million!" essentially.

[MadDAsHell]

53. Fair enough, but then it really isn't insurance and probably shouldn't be referred to as such.

Everyone is required to have auto liability insurance, but we don't tell rich people who paid their premiums that they then have to pay for damages out of pocket instead, simply because they can afford to do so. You pay the premium, the policy pays. That's how insurance works.

I'm fine with not allowing the wealthiest to get back the full benefits of what they paid in, but then let's call it welfare, because that's what it is.

[Maaattcast]

27. well..

Remember that as you go up the income scale and pay into social security, the amount of every dollar you earn above certain thresholds that your social security benefit is meant to replace goes down. I worded that a little weird, but here is an example..

When you decide to collect your Social Security benefits, the social security administration calculates your average monthly income (indexed for inflation) to come up with your primary insurance amount (PIA). To get the PIA they take your average indexed monthly income and replace 90% of the first $926, average monthly income above $926 but below $5,583 is replaced at 32% and monthly income above $5,583 is replaced at 15%. If your average monthly income equals out to less then $926, then social security will pay out 90% of your average monthly income. The more money you make however, the less and less of your income social security will replace as more of your average monthly income is subject to the lower "bend point" percentages..

Meaning if you raise the cap, even if you maintain the current system of paying out a higher monthly benefit as people make more, there still is a benefit to the overall program as social security is paying out to you just 15% of every additional dollar you put into the system. And various proposals to make social security solvent have proposed changes like lowering the 15% bend point to 5% or lifting or eliminating the cap and creating a whole new bend point at 5% for every dollar that would come in above today's current cap. If caps were eliminated and a wealthy person saw their indexed average monthly income go up by $20,000 and all of that newly counted income was subject to a new bend point of 5%, than they'd see $1,000 (5% of 20,000) added to their monthly primary insurance amount. Meanwhile when that person was working and paying taxes that additional $20,000 was taxed at the standard 12.4% (the 6.2% social security FICA payroll tax, which is matched by the employer, making it 12.4%) so was bringing in $2,480 in monthly revenue for the program. In other words lifting the cap can still benefit the solvency of the overall program while also maintaining the historical practice of having an individuals primary monthly benefit increase with the more they pay into the system, its just as your income goes up, the corresponding increase to your monthly primary insurance amount is smaller than it is lower down in the the income scale.

[exboyfil]

54. Excellent summary

Thank you. I also propose a fourth bend point (5% seems reasonable). Right now SS is carried on the backs of those making between about $60K to $133K (the amount receiving the 15% benefit). It is not fair that the obligation to help the lower lifetime earners be carried by just this group.

Also some thought should be given as to why wealth and non-wage income is not considered also to insure the social insurance for the least well off.

[pangaia]

6. " You do not have to pay into SS if you are self employed etc. " "its something we choose to pay for

Oh, really?
Unless I misunderstand what you are saying---

- you are self-employed you have to pay the entire amount instead of half.
- it is not something someone can CHOOSE to pay for...

[trc]

62. My wife is a CPA tax specialist

If you are self employed you absolutely have to pay your SSI and your Medicare. That is why so many companies now try to claim employees are contract labor, they do not want to pay the SSI and Medicare contributions, so the contractor has to make up the difference. She tells every self employed client to set aside at least 15% of all earnings and make contributions in a timely fashion. The IRS gets a bit pissy about this.

[pangaia]

64. That is what I was saying.

I was self-employed for many years.

[MANative]

7. As someone who spent 12 years as a self-employed consultant...

I can tell you that SS taxes are NOT optional. I paid the whole thing, including what an employer would have paid. It was painful.

[dlk]

10. Individuals Who Receive Income From LLC's Are Exempt From Paying into Social Security

It’s listed on SSA.gov.

[questionseverything]

29. you are mistaken or misunderstanding something

show us where you got that idea

[exboyfil]

55. Methinks he may get a knock on the door at some point

You have to pay yourself a reasonable salary which is subject to payroll tax.
https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/reduce-self-employment-taxes-with-a-corporation-or-llc


How Can a Corporation or LLC Help Me Avoid Self-Employment Tax?

If you are a sole proprietor, partner, or LLC that’s a disregarded entity, you’ll pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on your share of your company’s entire net income.

If you are an S corporation or an LLC taxed as an S corporation, you will pay Social Security and Medicare taxes only on the salary you pay yourself, not on the rest of your business profits.

To understand how an S corporation can save you money, let’s suppose you have a two-person general partnership that owns a small clothing store and has $400,000 in profits. Your self-employment taxes on your $200,000 share of the profits will be $20,308.

Now let’s suppose you form an S corporation and you and your partner each take a reasonable salary, which you determine is $80,000. You and your business will pay Social Security and Medicare taxes of $12,240 on your salary, but you will not pay those taxes on your share of the remaining business profit. That’s a tax savings of more than $8,000 for each partner.

So does that mean you can pay yourself a salary of $1 for the year and avoid Social Security and Medicare tax altogether? No. You must pay yourself a reasonable salary for the work you perform. If you don’t you can be audited or be subject to other actions by the IRS.

[MRDAWG]

18. Self employed pay emploee and employer into SS...........

it is on earned income.

[TomSlick]

30. As a self-employed attorney, I can assure you self-employed people pay SS taxes.

The only difference is that self-employed people pay both the employer and employee halves of the tax.

As long as I'm disagreeing, SS is not a defined benefit program. It is a social welfare program in which the taxes of current income earners pay for the benefits for retired persons. There is no reason that the cap on the taxes could not be removed and caps placed on benefits.

[AZ8theist]

33. perhaps it's a matter of semantics...

Because you're forgetting about survivor benefits as well as disability insurance.
It should be refereed to as defined benefit if for no other reason than to blunt the Reich wing rhetoric of "welfare".

It should noted that survivor benefits gave us the fucking hypocrite Paul Ryan.

[TomSlick]

34. Semantics perhaps but the truth remains.

SS in all its forms could be eliminated by legislation and is not a defined benefit plan. I'll grant you it was sold that way but it's always been a welfare program.

Welfare isn't a bad word, no matter how much the right wingnuts want us to believe it is.

[Captain Stern]

52. You DO have to pay into SS if you are self employed.

You actually have to pay the employee & employer portions.

[karynnj]

58. You do pay into SS if you are self employed

In fact, many people are treated as independent contractors, who should be considered employees. They either get a 1099 or no tax documentation at all, but they are required to include any income on their tax returns. (Of course, some of the non documented income never is reported.)

Then, if no social security was paid, you pay both the employer halves and the employee halves. (My husband and I have helped out 20/30 something year old daughters do their taxes.)

Otherwise, this is a wonderful statement on social security. Like you, I remember the increase in rate and cap of the 1980s. I also was very angry when some Republicans in the mid 2000s said that the money borrowed by the country from the reserves social security invested in treasury bills - the only option to store the money in the legislation - should be considered not there because it would harm the economy for the budget to have to repay this as needed!

What that meant was that in the 1980s under the guise of creating a large surplus to prepare SS for the coming retirement of the baby boomers was raided to pay for the Reagan tax cuts - mostly for the wealthy. Here is an article that is very out of date but it has a very clear explanation of the social security reserve fund. Any current complaint that the government can't let social security liquidate its bonds to pay benefits needs to be responded to by pointing out that the same people likely to complain are the ones who voted for the huge Trump tax cut, that gave most of the cuts to the super wealthy -- without doing much to help the economy.

Raising the cap is the easiest solution - even though Greenspan instead (at the end of the article) spoke of cutting benefits. I remember my favorite Senator (Kerry) quoting someone that retirement was at one time designed to depend on a three legged stool - social security, pensions, and retirement savings. More than a decade ago, he noted that for most people, there was only one leg left - social security. Recently, there were news articles on the percent of people nearing retirement without either a defined benefit pension (once common) or significant savings. This makes social security as important as it was when it was created!

[llmart]

39. There's also a limit as to how much monthly SS one can receive.

I believe that "cap" is raised every year and for 2019 it's $2861.

[rickford66]

50. There's also a higher family cap.

When I started collecting, my wife started collecting on my SS (half my benefit) and we still had an adopted child in HS so he got something until 19, The total was over $3000/month. It was back in 2011 so I don't remember the exact amount but $3600 seems to come to mind. Any one with questions about their SS should definitely schedule an interview at the office, preferably a year before retirement. Our personal situation wasn't easily explained on the websites. My wife was British and a year older than me and didn't have enough quarters to claim on her own and we had the adopted child still in HS.

[llmart]

51. My experience with SS.

I did start calling the customer service hotline about a year beforehand. Now, looking back, I tell people that don't trust everything they tell you on the hotline. I had a somewhat different situation also and I got probably three different answers regarding that situation. Then I decided to make an appointment to sit down with someone in an office. I asked them my questions, and this is after thoroughly researching both online and in books, and got an answer that I didn't think was correct. While there in the interview, the person I was working with said she would go get her supervisor because she wasn't sure she understood since I kept coming back with the fact that what she was telling me wasn't what I had read. So she got a supervisor who pretty much confirmed what this woman I was working with said, so I figured OK, they must be right. I had exhausted what I thought was every option.

Now six years later it's always bugged me that I still didn't think they were correct and I went online to Social Security's website and asked my question on their blog. I got a couple responses from the person who answers the questions, and they agreed with me. However, I ended up telling that person that it wasn't anything I did to give me the incorrect amount when I applied, but that it was a supervisor at the local office who set it up that way even after I had pointed out to her I didn't think it was correct.

So, now of course it's too late to change and I've done the math and decided the amount wasn't worth dredging this all up, if SS would even admit that they were incorrect. The reason I kept pursuing it is that a.) I'm a persistent person and I like to know the facts and b.) maybe someone in SS will learn something. I tell everyone that you really can't trust what answers you get on the phone from SS, because it depends on who's on the other end.

[rickford66]

67. My Dad had a problem with SS after he retired many years ago.

He kept working, self employed, so his benefits should have increased yearly, but they didn't. He finally went to his Congressman who got it fixed with back pay. Maybe keep trying.

[flamin lib]

5. I would also add SS taxes to un-earned income. NT

[HuskyOffset]

21. All income should be taxed at the same rate

Income should be income. If I'm paid $40 for moving boxes around for an hour, that should be taxed at the same rate as the $40 someone on Wall Street made by buying & selling stocks.

[infinite_wisdom]

48. Flat tax

If you are advocating for a flat tax, I would have to say that’s a bad idea. It would make our tax system much more regressive. If you take an honest look at income and wealth distribution in the US and think a regressive tax structure is the answer then I would have to say that you are outside your mind. Our current situation - which is not good at all - would be made exponentially worse.

Also, wouldn’t be long before lobbyists succeeded in getting exemptions for the 1 percenters to make it even worse on top of the catastrophe that had already been created.

We are probably heading for a more progressive tax system and UBI, that is if we are at all sane. If we go flat tax under the same old trickle down rationale this ship will be at the bottom of the Ocean in no time.

[HuskyOffset]

49. Sorry, that was really bad wording on my part

What I meant was all income should be subject to the same tax rates, no special rates for non-labor income, like interest or stock sales etc. Thanks for catching that, totally agree with you about a flat tax.

[denbot]

8. If corporations are people too..

They should also pay into social security.

[BamaRefugee]

12. BRILLIANT

[radical noodle]

17. They do

for their employees.

[HuskyOffset]

22. Does that mean corporations also get to collect Social Security? (NT)

[denbot]

26. When they reach retirement age.

And pay the same taxes as an individual with the same income, sure.

[global1]

9. I Posted This Back In 2015 And It's Become Relevant Again....

Check out this link: https://www.democraticunderground.com/128063739

[Nitram]

11. Remove the caps!

[IronLionZion]

13. Easy cure for Medicare...make it for all

Everyone pays, everyone benefits

[brewens]

63. I saw a post on FB saying something like, "I paid into Medicare all my life, screw letting

everyone get on it!" This is someone chugging the same old Kool-Aid. Anything that helps other people has to come out of their hide. They even think raising taxes on the wealthy and taking a really large inheritance hurts them somehow. One proposal was I think taxing inheritance over $200,000, and they even said that would be a tax on small businesses and family farmers.

No one has said Medicare for all would cut anyone's benefits. No way they would even propose doing that to older retired people if they wanted it to pass.

[elleng]

15. Right, and it's been a no brainer forever!!!

[NYMinute]

16. I think

that the trust funds would be solvent if the US General Fund repays the IOUs created when Reagan, Papa Bush and Baby Bush raided the funds to pay for tax cuts and war toys.

Lifting the cap would be unfair the way the program works. If someone makes $500K a year, their benefits are still $2300 a month after they retire. Social Security was supposed to pay for itself and was not a tax-benefit paradigm. So - if you remove the caps on FICA, you'll also have to remove caps on the benefits paid out.

Raise income taxes instead and pay up the IOUs - the SS Trust fund will then be adequate for everyone.

[Rebl2]

20. You are

right about that. They did raid SS funds to pay for tax cuts and unnecessary wars.

[hughee99]

37. By "IOUs", you mean treasury bonds, right?

They’re actually special treasury securities, but the government is required to honor them like treasury bonds, I believe. And the trust fund was required to buy these type of things since the beginning.

[PoliticAverse]

41. The trust funds were never "raided". The tax rate people paid into the fund actually went up...

under the deal Reagan and Tip O'Neil reached.

[Kaleva]

57. the Trust Fund is expected to run out in 2035 even if Congress paid back the IOUs

"The Social Security Trust Fund Will Run Out of Money by 2035"

https://www.barrons.com/articles/social-security-deficit-reserves-check-benefits-payroll-tax-51555958282

[MRDAWG]

19. If 95% of workers pay SS & Mecicare on all of their earnings then..........

the top 5% should too.

[Honeycombe8]

23. You are wise, Peacetrain. Yes...Soc. Sec. HAS been tweaked before, to make it cont. working.

It's not a crisis, for those who think Social Security is a worthwhile program. I do.

[rocktivity]

24. Without the cap

wouldn't EVERYONE be able to pay a LOWER rate?


rocktivity

[WyattKansas]

28. What about collecting the debt that has been leveraged against it to pay for tax cuts to the rich?

If the Fund has financed tax cuts to the wealthy all these years, then that would explain the problem. It would also explain why beneficiaries do not receive enough or better coverage.

Did the Medicare Fund also finance tax cuts to the wealthy the last 40 years as well?

If so, then the problem is the leveraged debt against the Funds that needs remedied, not 'entitlements' republicans keep screeching about.

[PoliticAverse]

40. The debt is being repaid. In about 15 years it'll be all paid back and that is when....

Social Security is projected to be short funds.

[exboyfil]

56. By borrowing more money

Almost everyone does not pay enough federal taxes to justify what we spend today. The $200B/yr. has to come from somewhere.

I thought the wealth tax might be part of the way to get there, but apparently Warren has already committed that money to an inefficient post secondary educational system.

[librechik]

31. yep--easy to do. Except Republicans.

[Ruby the Liberal]

32. Add Capital Gains and Carried Interest to the list

Those are not currently taxable income.

[unblock]

65. they are "taxable income", but are taxed at the capital gains rate

they are not "ordinary income".

for high-earners, capital gains is 23.8% while ordinary income is 37%.

either way, i believe the 3.8% medicare surtax applies on top.



personally, i think all types of income should be taxes the same way. it's pointlessly distracting to restructure earnings to look like the more preferred form of income.

[Ruby the Liberal]

66. Thank you

Yes, thats what I was inartfully suggesting - the Warren Buffet's Secretary analogy.

Greatly appreciate you putting that into words. Earnings are earnings, IMO.

[LiberalFighter]

35. There you go

Put it out there that we will be moving in with the kids and grandkids so we can make ends meet.

[George II]

36. The cap has been raised almost every year since the 1950s. The link below is only through 2011....

....(page 4), but the current cap is $132,000. But your concept is correct, why not remove the cap altogether? Lower income pay a larger portion of income than those over $132,000. It's ludicrous.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/policybriefs/pb2011-02.pdf

[JohnZSmith]

38. Yes, lift the caps. Also....

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2011/7/15/994921/-

[oasis]

42. Take both houses of congress and the presidency. That would help.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

43. Social Security does have a cap on benefits.

It's such that low income people benefit much more from SS than even middle income people. Which is as it should be.

Self-employed pay both sides of FICA.

A lot of people take great pride in getting paid "under the table" so that they don't pay any taxes. And then they are shocked, just shocked when it turns out they can't collect Social Security when they want to retire.

I actually had three years early in my employment history where I maxed out my SS deduction. It was toward the very end of the year each time, but it was a bit nice to have a somewhat bigger paycheck two or three times.

Which has suddenly led me to a somewhat random thought. People who make more than the current maximum, $132,900, depending on where they live, may not think of themselves as particularly well off, but I wonder how they react to the increase in the paycheck after they've reached that income, and the equal decrease at the beginning of the next year. I bet it feels like a cheat, like they're suddenly being taxed unfairly.

I have a cousin who is a nurse in the NYC area and she earns well above that maximum, as does her husband. I know they don't think of themselves as particularly well off, but that's because of the context of their lives. A pricey suburb in their part of the country. One son, adopted, which isn't the single most important thing about him. Like any parents they are doing their very best to provide him with the best possible life.

The cousin recently posted something of FB about how poorly school nurses are paid and as a result schools are having a hard time retaining nurses. I suggested she consider a career change, and she made it very clear there was no way on god's green earth she'd give up her six figure income. I didn't respond back, as I wanted, about not being surprised schools can't retain nurses, because that would have been more rude and more aggressive than I want to be. But still, she's a microcosm of certain problems in this country.

I cannot fault her for wanting to earn as much money as she can in her career. But she represents the continued inequities in various fields. I don't know what the solution is. Schools cannot possibly start paying six figure incomes to nurses. And how can I suggest she, and other nurses have their salaries cut by 70%? All the schools can realistically hope for is a pool of trained nurses willing to work for relatively low money in exchange for the benefits of having weekends, holidays, and summers off, and a schedule that makes it possible for them to be with their own children.

This is one small example of large systemic problems in the labor force.

[TimeToGo]

44. They should at least

Raise the cap equal to congressional pay.

[Chalco]

59. My brother and me fight about SS, here's why

He's a multimillionaire and I'm upper middle class. We grew up in poverty, put ourselves through
college, and did well.

Despite his upbringing he thinks Social Security is an entitlement program and is unnecessary. Why?
Because every month he gets a check from Social Security for $3000 and he doesn't need it. It just
goes into his bank account and sits there. He thinks it's a waste of money for him to receive it so it
must be a waste for everyone else also.

He asked me "Are you taking your social security?"

"Yes," I said

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I need it to live on. My pension helps but it's not enough."

"Oh."

[garybeck]

60. Bernie Sanders has been saying this for a decade

[Wounded Bear]

61. Raising the minimum wage would help, too...

by increasing revenues.