September 11, 2019
That’s what readers of this article on a Democratic proposal which would both increase Social Security benefits and phase in a 1.2 percentage point increase in Social Security taxes (on both workers and employers) over 25 years. The article tells readers:
“Someone making $50,000 now faces an employee-side Social Security payroll tax of $3,100 a year. Under the bill, that tax bill would rise to $3,125 in 2020, which Mr. Larson pitches as an extra 50 cents a week. The tax would continue rising until 2043, when it would hit $3,700. Employers would face the same tax increase. Economists generally think workers bear the cost of both sides of the tax.”
Assuming that workers do pay the employers’ side of the tax (generally a reasonable assumption) the full tax increase for this worker would be $1,200 a year. However, Social Security projects that real wages will rise at a rate averaging roughly 1.4 percent over this period. This means that if a typical worker got their share of this wage growth, then the worker earning $50,000 a year would be earning almost 38 percent more in 2043, or $69,000 a year in 2043. This projected pay increase of $19,000 a year is more than fifteen times as large as the tax increase being proposed by the Democrats.
It would have been useful to include this projected rise in wages in the piece. It is also worth noting that most workers have not been getting their share of wage growth, as it has instead gone to CEOs and other top executives, Wall Street types, and highly protected professionals, like doctors. The prospect of losing out on their share of wage growth will have far more impact on workers’ living standards than the Social Security tax being proposed by the Democrats.
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