What is the difference between SS and every other item in the general revenue fund?

[kentuck]

It is that every worker and employer in America contribute to the fund up to 15% total of that workers income, with half coming from the employer. That is only up to the first $106,000 dollars, not on the total amount earned. It is a workers insurance and security program.

No designated amount is paid into any fund to pay for defense spending or veterans benefits or foreign aid. Those amounts are designated by the standing Congress at the time. Social Security is different. It is designated for one purpose.

If it is to be only a "tax" for general revenue purposes, then it would be a very regressive tax. Only the poor and middle class pay into it. The wealthy escape paying this tax after their first $106K. That is the opposite of a progressive tax.

If it is to be treated as just another tax, then everyone should pay the same amount on all their income or the wealthy should be paying even more. Either it is a social security fund for the workers of America or it is not. If it is not, then we need to change the tax rates.

[RC]

1. Social Security is funded from the general revenue fund?

Since when? Since Obama put it on the table, that's when.

[Luminous Animal]

2. SS is not paid into the general fund.

[doc03]

3. What is the difference between SS and every other item in

the general fund? Simple the American people are supposed to receive SS when we retire but it is
much easier to take that money from us then from China and the banksters on Wall Street.

[midnight]

4. True.

[customerserviceguy]

5. There is some progressivity built into the Social Security System

It's seen when one goes to collect benefits. A higher percentage of the first so many dollars of a worker's wages are used to calculate the benefit, and a lowering percentage for wage brackets after that. Hence, a person who made $50,000 (or it's inflation-adjusted equivalent) all his life will get more than half of what a retiring worker who made $100,000 all his working life.

It's something important to remember as we ask our politicians to raise the wage base. If you don't have even a further lowering step, then you undo a lot of the benefit of collecting the extra taxes. I'm sorry, I don't know what those percentages and steps are, but a few years ago, some kind poster here at DU laid this out for me.

Another thing that the poorest workers have going for them is the Earned Income Credit. Formerly, you only had to have children to get it, but the very poorest workers can now qualify for it, and it's seen by policymakers as a return of their FICA contributions, for which they still get credit.