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2/22/2011 8:27:32 PM
hanleybrand
Posts: 1
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It's a (perhaps not so small) thing, but social security withholdings are capped according to the wage base, which is $106,800 for 2011. Anyone earning above that amount should pay the same to social security as someone who earns the base, if I understand how it work correctly (I don't earn that much, so I can't confirm from personal experience 
I bring it up because Bernie Sanders recently pointed out that the wage base being maintained (or put another way, having billionaires pay the same as someone making 100K/year) is the difference between social security being solvent or going broke in the next 30 years.
Sources:
http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/colafacts.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Wage_Base
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bernie-sanders-lift-income-cap-social-secu
example incomes/line items from the WWPF data set:
$106,800
Social Security$6397.36
150,000
Social Security$8958.16
250,000
Social Security$15671.00
500,00
Social Security$33509.95
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2/23/2011 9:29:55 AM
jimmygiii
Posts: 1
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You are correct that social security withholdings are capped at $106,800 for 2011 and 2010. However, I think that whatwepayfor.com is returning the allocation of our tax dollars at different income levels, which is different from the amount of taxes withheld from our paychecks.
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2/26/2011 2:19:35 PM
johnsat
Posts: 3
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hanleybrand wrote:
It's a (perhaps not so small) thing, but social security withholdings are capped according to the wage base, which is $106,800 for 2011. Anyone earning above that amount should pay the same to social security as someone who earns the base, if I understand how it work correctly (I don't earn that much, so I can't confirm from personal experience I bring it up because Bernie Sanders recently pointed out that the wage base being maintained (or put another way, having billionaires pay the same as someone making 100K/year) is the difference between social security being solvent or going broke in the next 30 years. Sources: http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/colafacts.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Wage_Base http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bernie-sanders-lift-income-cap-social-secu example incomes/line items from the WWPF data set: $106,800 Social Security$6397.36 150,000 Social Security$8958.16
250,000 Social Security$15671.00
500,00 Social Security$33509.95
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2/26/2011 2:24:13 PM
johnsat
Posts: 3
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It is misleading to include Social Security in the federal totals. Social Security should have its own separate presentation, especially for allocating my taxes to “what I’m paying for.” Social Security has its own sources of income, and its income isn’t related to the income tax I pay. The federal govt. can’t just use SS’s revenue. SS is a separate, closed fund. It has to invest the money it receives, of course, and it could theoretically invest in anything, but it invests in U.S. govt. securities, thus making funds available to the federal govt. However, if it didn’t invest in U.S. govt. securities, the U.S. govt. would sell them to someone else, e.g., China, Japan, European countries. That doesn’t make SS’s expenses part of China’s budget. So neither SS’s receipts or expenditures should be lumped in with the U.S. govt. total.
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3/2/2011 7:05:24 PM
Andrew
Administrator
Posts: 5
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johnsat wrote:
It is misleading to include Social Security in the federal totals. Social Security should have its own separate presentation, especially for allocating my taxes to “what I’m paying for.” Social Security has its own sources of income, and its income isn’t related to the income tax I pay. The federal govt. can’t just use SS’s revenue. SS is a separate, closed fund. It has to invest the money it receives, of course, and it could theoretically invest in anything, but it invests in U.S. govt. securities, thus making funds available to the federal govt. However, if it didn’t invest in U.S. govt. securities, the U.S. govt. would sell them to someone else, e.g., China, Japan, European countries. That doesn’t make SS’s expenses part of China’s budget. So neither SS’s receipts or expenditures should be lumped in with the U.S. govt. total.
Our reason why we included SS is because it's included in the federal budget, which we're not striking any accounts from. We view it as money in and money out. We have also heard the argument that we should not include mandatory spending for similar reasons - it's allocated to one specific thing and can even have a separate source of funding other than individual income taxes. The case to remove SS from view seems more political than not, but if you can convince us otherwise we'll be happy to change it.
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3/2/2011 7:10:57 PM
Andrew
Administrator
Posts: 5
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jimmygiii is correct 
jimmygiii wrote:
You are correct that social security withholdings are capped at $106,800 for 2011 and 2010. However, I think that whatwepayfor.com is returning the allocation of our tax dollars at different income levels, which is different from the amount of taxes withheld from our paychecks.
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4/18/2011 9:46:22 AM
kenact
Posts: 3
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johnsat wrote:
hanleybrand wrote: It's a (perhaps not so small) thing, but social security withholdings are capped according to the wage base, which is $106,800 for 2011. Anyone earning above that amount should pay the same to social security as someone who earns the base, if I understand how it work correctly (I don't earn that much, so I can't confirm from personal experience I bring it up because Bernie Sanders recently pointed out that the wage base being maintained (or put another way, having billionaires pay the same as someone making 100K/year) is the difference between social security being solvent or going broke in the next 30 years. Sources: http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/colafacts.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Wage_Base http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bernie-sanders-lift-income-cap-social-secu example incomes/line items from the WWPF data set: $106,800 Social Security$6397.36 150,000 Social Security$8958.16
250,000 Social Security$15671.00
500,00 Social Security$33509.95
The biggest issue I see with this idea is that the cap on SS payouts would have to increase as well. One would not necessarily offset the other.
Since the life expectancy in this country is increasing, it would be fair to start gradually increasing the retirement age, but the best way to keep SS solvent is to make sure our workforce is employed to the maximum extent it can be and that wages for those under the cap start rising to at least keep pace with inflation.
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4/18/2011 10:13:04 AM
kenact
Posts: 3
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Andrew wrote:
Our reason why we included SS is because it's included in the federal budget, which we're not striking any accounts from. We view it as money in and money out.
You are only presenting one side of the budgetary picture. Expenditures cannot exist without Revenue, and you are only showing the Expenditure side of the equation.
Andrew wrote:
We have also heard the argument that we should not include mandatory spending for similar reasons - it's allocated to one specific thing and can even have a separate source of funding other than individual income taxes. The case to remove SS from view seems more political than not, but if you can convince us otherwise we'll be happy to change it.
The case to report SS as an expenditure without providing the information regarding the revenue side of that equation sounds more political.
Since SS is taking in more than it pays out, and will do so for quite some time, trying to point to SS as a budget problem is at best misleading.
The goal of this site is aparently to get people angry about the amount of income tax they pay and the amount of waste and fraud in the government. That's fine, but given the fact that excess revenue from FICA (money collected via FICA, but not issued as a SS payout) is being used to help fund non-Social Security aspects of the federal government, it would seem that the people should be more outraged about their FICA than their Income Tax rate.
edited by kenact on 4/18/2011
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