The SS tax is regressive the flat tax treats everyone the same.
Oh it's opposite world today???
The SS tax hits lower income people harder than higher income people THAT is the very definition of a regressive tax.
That's just plain stupid. Lower income people get more out of SS than they put in.. this as opposed to upper income folks who get less out of SS than they put in.
First off... that's totally irrelevant. It doesn't matter what benefits are given out, to determine if a tax is regressive.
Regressive tax - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
"A
regressive tax is a
tax imposed in such a manner that the
tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases."
Social Security, and Medicare, are both regressive taxes. Benefits are irrelevant to determining whether the tax fits the definition of regressive or not.
Bottom line: It is a regressive tax. You can either accept that, or prove you are disqualified from this discussion.
Now as for benefits to tax ratio, I will in fact concede to you, that at the absolute lowest end of the income spectrum, people get out, more than they put in.
However, I think you need to realize just how few fit that group.
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/41...dicare-Taxes-and-Benefits-over-a-Lifetime.pdf
A single Male, Earning $45K a year, turning 65 in the year 2015:
Paid in Taxes: $337K
Will collect in benefits: $287K
Female Benefits: $314K (women tend to live longer)
That's significantly less in my book. Which means well more than 50% of the country, is collecting less than they paid in taxes.
Yet it's true that if you earn $20K for your entire life, you will collect far more in benefits, than you paid in taxes.
However, you seems to be missing our point.
If I earn $20,000 a year, until I retire, for doing that I get $12,000 a year in benefits. So taxes keep me broke until I retire, and then I'm even more broke until I die.
Do you think people who live on $12,000 a year in Social Security benefits, are sitting there going "Man this is great! I'm getting back more than I paid in!" while they live in a roach apartment with a beat up 20 year old car to get around in? I did meals on wheels to exactly these people. They are the most pitiful sight you could see.
6.5% of $20,000 a year, is $1,300 a year in taxes.
If you take that $108 a month, and put it into a growth stock mutual fund, over that same time frame of age 20 to age 67, you would end up with..... $1.2 Million dollars.
But thanks to you... those people have $12,000 a year. Now that's a good trade off.
On top of that.....
What you miss, is what advancement those people may have made, had they kept their own money.
Back in the year 1999-2000, I made some really terrible financial mistakes. I spent literally 6 years of my life, paying off loans and debts I had built up in 2 years. In 2006, I paid off nearly all of my debt, and closed out all debts, all credit cards, and all loans of any kind in 2008.
But most of it I paid off in 2006. When I got my account closed letter, and paid-in-full notices in 2006, I tallied up, and found that I had paid off $20,000 worth of debt and loans by 2006.
I received from the Social Security administration, that I had also paid into Social Security $23,000 in taxes.
If *I* had been able to keep *MY* own money, I would NOT have had to spend 6 years of my life working for the bank.
Millions of low wage earners could use that money to.... fix their cars, or repair their homes. Maybe they could have paid for some education, or training. Maybe they could have used the money to start a new business.
Seriously, during that 6 years, I did NOTHING. I bought NOTHING. I didn't even buy new clothes. I wish I had pictures of the rags that I wore during that time. The ripped shirts and torn pants, and so on.
So the Social Security tax, holds people down while they are working, so they can live impoverished when they retire?
And lastly.....
All the calculations, all the estimates, all the graphs and charts, all assume that people sit there and collect their meager $12K a year.
Problem is.... many don't. Most of the retired people, don't just sit on their butts, collecting impoverishment benefits. Most go back to work, because they can't possibly survive on so little.
But when they go to work..... they lose their benefits.
If I reach 67, I am certainly not going to live off of $12K a year. That's not going to happen. I'll keep working.
But then I'll lose my benefits.
So how much benefits will I collect over my taxes paid in, if I keep work? None...
in fact, if I keep working, I'll be paying even more taxes into the system, for the benefits I don't receive.
All of that BULL CRAP, that the lowest income people will collect more than they paid in, all fo that is tossed out the window if they keep working at retirement age.
Bottom line..... Socialist Insecurity, is a terrible terrible program that ruins everyone.
And by the way...... It *IS* going broke. The retirement age will have to be raised, and taxes will have to be increased. Sooner, or later, the system will have to be changed, and it will make the already miserable benefit-to-tax ratio, far worse.