WSJ: Concentration of Wealth at the Top is Draining Social Security
Well, gee. Is this a bug - or a feature? Who could ever have predicted that concentrating all the wealth at the top and exempting them from increased Social Security taxes would lead to a decrease in the Social Security trust fund?
The nation's wealth gap is widening amid an uproar about lofty pay packages in the financial world.
Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the U.S., according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Social Security Administration data -- without counting billions of dollars more in pay that remains off federal radar screens that measure wages and salaries.
Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total U.S. pay in 2007, the latest figures available. The compensation numbers don't include incentive stock options, unexercised stock options, unvested restricted stock units and certain benefits.
The pay of employees who receive more than the Social Security wage base -- now $106,800 -- increased by 78%, or nearly $1 trillion, over the past decade, exceeding the 61% increase for other workers, according to the analysis. In the five years ending in 2007, earnings for American workers rose 24%, half the 48% gain for the top-paid. The result: The top-paid represent 33% of the total, up from 28% in 2002.
The growing portion of pay that exceeds the maximum amount subject to payroll taxes has contributed to the weakening of the Social Security trust fund. In May, the government said the Social Security fund would be exhausted in 2037, four years earlier than was predicted in 2008.
Although that is part of it. It is also that the government is using Social Security money to pay for other things. This in turn makes the S.S. program look like it's failing.
We fix it by raising the cap on what money is taxed, since it is currently something like $90,000. Push it up to $115,000, and the problem is solved.
This is off topic, but what is up with Coulter and her obsession with her hair in this clip?
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2245
The Social Security Trust Fund which is the reservoir of the FICA collections greater than pay outs currently is about $2 Trillion.
This goes into special Treasury Bonds.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
so obvious, I am reluctant to post it. Kidding! Pay SS on all your income. Everyone. The Medicare surtax, too.
Social Security, of course, is not the only problem from concentrating the wealth at the top.
Neo Feudalism!!!
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
what it is!
Mexico is their ideal transition economy. Somalia is their ultimate goal.
What a shock that the right's class warfare has been so successful as to turn America into the first 21st-century feudal state, where we ought to be happy to be serfs, serving our lords and masters! After all, if God didn't love rich people so much, he wouldn't have made Jesus one of them!
just the first to BECOME one in the 21st century.
Hooray!
I'll be wormfood by then!
Yahoo!
I'll be 87 and with any luck I'll still be up and about and have my wits about me and be living with one of my sons.
All I need is a room I can lock, my favorite rocker and my computer.
Ha!!
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
but I won't get SS.
I'm on a firefighters' pension system which has been swindled by Wall St BIGTIME!
My medical insurance went from bad to worse already.
Makes me reeeal happy that I got seriously and permanently injured in the line of duty only to have WC, disability insurance policies revoked on technicalities...
"Oh, look; you had a back strain thirty years ago - that must be why all of your lumbar discs are crushed - not your recent injury!"
"But...but my pre employment physical and x-rays show that I was in perfect health."
"Sorry, time's up! Have a nice life, Gimpy!"
Newsflash:
There won't be a 2037.
We have peak oil and between the amount of CO2 we pump out and the Chinese who will outdo us very soon,
the planet Earth WILL BE KAPUT.
It will still be orbiting the sun but the ecology and us with it will be toast.
(I'd be 88 but I am not counting on it)
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
into the conversation...
Actually, I think that certain ants, cockroaches, lichens and worms may survive.
Not to mention oceanic rift extremophiles.
So, it ain't ALL so bad...
Yeah, but I doubt the ants and cockroaches will try to collect Social Security.
Ummmmm...worm foooooood! Arrglggllll
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
They'll all be "going galt" soon. What a fucking joke this country is lol. All I can do is laugh because it's too depressing thinking about it any other way.
Cleverly installed and maintained by your representative in congress, [congressperson-on-the-take of your choice here]
Let's do a "Trading Places" deal on one of these "highly compensated" people and ask them to live on $50K for a couple of years. I wonder how they'd like it?
What?!? No maid?? No cook??
:P
for that $50 grand/year!!!!!! Oh wait..... you're saying that trade is only for the "highly compensated"? Damnit!
Social Security deductions from their checks have been nothing but "gravy" funneled into the wallets of the nationless jet set crowd now running things.
BTW - it looks like another Boehner sandwitch is on todays menu regarding national health. They say they are gong in for the kill, but it sounds like the party of NO to me.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
it's whats for dinner for the wealthy.
http://www.boatbookings.com/temp/oasis-lursse...
to our wages
to our healthcare
to our twilight years
how much longer before they're picking our bones?
Oh wait, never mind.....
. . next
Poor begger!
for Social Security deductions from wages and slaries is, what...$102K? They ought to do away with the upper limit and include bonuses and other perks as income eligible for SS deductions.
Let's see, 6.65% of $2.1 trillion comes out to $139.95 billion, plus employer match = $279.3 billion. That would take quite a bit of the strain off the system.
can screw American workers while they labor their lives away without healthcare AND screw them after they're retired(the ones that live that long)too. SEE!! The American Dream is alive and well! Party like it's 1928!!! WooHoo!
...has the common courtesy to drop dead on the way home from the retired party and thus doesn't become a burden on society. For myself, I'm planning on leaving my job only when they haul my carcass out on a slab. It's the least I can do for my employer.
The Great Game
Fuller was born on a farm outside Ludlow, Vermont. She spent most of her life in Ludlow, working as a legal secretary, but lived with her niece in Brattleboro, Vermont during her last eight years. She retired in 1939, having paid just three years of payroll taxes. She received monthly Social Security checks until her death in 1975 at age 100. By the time of her death, Fuller had collected $22,888.92 from Social Security monthly benefits, compared to her contributions of $24.75 to the system.
At the right place at the right time. ;-)
Study the symptoms not the virus...
... magic lockboxes. Interest compounds like crazy in those things.
Let's resuscitate Reagan...so we can have the Revolution all over again.
It was so much fun back then when government didn't work.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
http://postworthy.com/contributorimages/usapo...
http://www.jetset2010.com/imgs/private-jet-SA...
The aircraft sports a fully stocked refreshment centre with hot, cold, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Suitable for the leisure Health Insurance Executive with time on his hands.
Let's resuscitate Reagan...so we can have the Revolution all over again.
It was so much fun back then when government didn't work.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRyZyrGhkI8
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I was born in the late 60's and I honestly don't expect to see a penny paid to me in retirement benefits. I have begrudgingly accepted it as a rip off. What the thieves don't take from the fund, the boomers will drain it dry.
Social Security is not a bank account.
Each generation paying into it is paying for the previous generations retirement.
The generations that scream the loudest to end social security are screwing themselves
For pennies on the dollar, since for every dollar we pay in the government pays two.
The boosh era reform was to use the pennies on the stock market
Remember how that worked out?
Social security is also not in trouble, but it may be advisable to to pass legislation on a lockbox so excess funds are not used to balance other government accounts as required by law right now.
Now Medicare on the other hand...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
If you want a good laugh (or perhaps a good cry), take a look at some of the angry comments that have been posted at the WSJ in response to this article. The following is among my favorite, head-scratch-inducers:
"This article has nothing to do who pays for Social Security. It is a propaganda piece that is laying the groundwork for eliminating the upper limit on payroll taxes. Obama and others have said that they want to eliminate it and the government needs the money to fund health care. So they have their buddies in the press run few stories on how the “rich” are escaping their fair share and stir the flames of class envy. Soon “everyone” will agree that the problem must be fixed. It doesn’t surprise me that the political class resorts to these tactics just that I’m reading this tripe in the WSJ."
You know, because the WSJ has traditionally been a mouthpiece for Democratic presidents...
As soon as someone dares to mention the growing income gap in this country, some people just go apopletic.
Mateo
raising tax rates on those who have profited from their positions regardless of the industry they work in. The problem is now and has always been the ability of government to use SS funds for other financial holes to fill. This has gone on for decades and has to stop. Think back to Al Gore and his famous " lock box" approach to SS. Think back to Greenspan's testimony when asked how to protect SS. His answer. Move it as far as possible out of Washington D.C.
We could have solved this problem years ago if only those greedy congress critters could keep their hands out of the cookie jar, but it just seems to be otherwise which is why we face this problem administration after administration.
Want to raise taxes on those who make great salaries, go right ahead. But when the final law is written, make damn sure that there is a provision that clearly states that funds placed into SS cannot be used for any other purpose other than paying SS recipients.
Think about how few rich people there would be in this country if they weren't kept safe and secure and protected by the legal system, law enforcement, rules and regulations that keep the infrastructure humming along. A man who makes a million dollars a year with a shipping business gets a hell of a lot more use out of the roads than a janitor ever will, yet the millionaire whines and moans because he has to pay any taxes at all, and uses offshore tricks and loopholes (and lax enforcement) to avoid even paying that.
"Class warfare"? It was declared a long time ago, and we didn't declare it.
instead of 6.2% emp'er/emp'ee to 106,800, make it 5% emp'er/emp'ee up to 125,000 (no one will pay more, most will pay less), then john edward's donut hole to 250,000, then 5% on emp'ee only above that
it's more of a flat tax, less regressive, a tax cut to everyone making less than 125k, a tax cut to every employer, and making george UU. bush's base pay more is not going to piss off 85% of the country, is it ??
Subjecting 100% of income to FICA is a no-brainer, but maybe too bitter a pill for too many to swallow. But how 'bout some poetic justice: a reverse donut hole.
The first hundred-some thousand subject to FICA like now, indexed to inflation. Then a break. Then over, say, $1,000,000, back into the fiery pit.
If it was such a good idea for Medicare Rx coverage, it's bound to be popular here, too.
This was the Republican's decision..long ago..
but,
do you remember this article?
http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2003/...
Comments are closed on this entry