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Increasing Taxes to Bail Out Social Security Essay

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Increasing Taxes to Bail Out Social Security

In 1935 the United States was in the throws of the worst economic depression our country had ever seen. The President at the time was Franklin Roosevelt. As part of Roosevelt's "New Deal", he instituted Social Security, which established an old-age pension system, to be administered by the federal government, and financed by taxes on both employers and employees. This system was to help the older citizens and dependents of workers of the U.S. However, since its inception, Social Security has been turned into a retirement plan of sorts. Many retired and older citizens rely solely on Social Security benefits to live. The program has been successful for the last 64 years, but in the near …show more content…

Once the baby boomers retire, there will be far more retirees drawing benefits than workers to support them. Right now the ratio of workers exceeds the number of beneficiaries. In the year 2030 it will be even less. In less that 2 decades, the taxes that the government will collect from the workers will not cover the benefits that they are paying out. This will cause the government to either stop Social Security, dip more into debt by continuing to pay, or institute a plan.

In light of the problem that our country is faced with, there have been many suggestions of ways to fix Social Security. The proposals include ideas such as raising taxes, increasing the age to collect, cutting benefits, and privatization in stocks. The probable first step to be taken by the government would be to increase the payroll tax. The government has proposed a 2 percent payroll tax increase, which would bring it to about 14.5 percent. They have also thought about increasing the amount of money that can be taxed (currently $68,400). This would generate a vast amount of money, however it would raise the taxes of the middle class to an astronomical amount.

Besides increasing the tax, the government could possibly raise the age that people are eligible to receive benefits. It is proposed to raise the retirement age to 70 by 2029 and the early retirement age to 65 by 2017. After that, they would increase the age of retirement to correspond with the rise in life expectancy. Raising the age

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