The people making more than 184k do not want to be a part of our society, it seems.
Social Security can be saved. Scrap the cap!
Submitted 18 hours ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to workreform@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/68adb505-c345-4194-8ab4-93636f7c7565.jpeg
Comments
psycho_driver@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
DaddleDew@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Usually it works the other way around, where people don’t start paying a tax until their salary reaches a certain level. Somehow they’ve inverted this to favor the rich? Why aren’t people rioting?
Goodeye8@piefed.social 14 hours ago
Because people have finite time. Most of it goes to work, some of it goes to sleep, the remaining time gets spent on not looking like a hoarding caveman (or if you have kids, kids). So if you get an hour of actual free time in your day you probably have it pretty good. Now, do you want to spend that hour on politics or do you want to chill from your day?
Keeping up with politics is a luxury most people don’t have.
Polisheocket@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
Or don’t want, I stress at my job, stress about finances, stress about family, last thing I’m stressing over is what’s going on in the world. I’ll watch my very local news to see what the dog of the week is but that’s about it
socsa@piefed.social 13 hours ago
Right, democratic agency requires not only rights, but the ability to actualize those rights. Just like elections are meaningless if you don’t have the freedom to engage with and debate political questions, so are those freedoms meaningless if you don’t have the time, energy or capacity to reduce those freedoms to practice.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 14 hours ago
Slow boil
aesthelete@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Sure, and also social security is the opposite of need based as well. So those people who paid tax on a tiny fraction of their income also see the largest checks after retirement age when they need zero percent of the money. Meanwhile, people who worked their whole lives and paid social security tax on 100% of their earnings don’t get enough back from social security to be able to continue to live.
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
Framing social security this way is dangerously misleading. Yes, the amount you put in is capped, but the amount that you get to take out when you are old is also capped. I fully believe that taxes need to be progressive, but social security is not a tax, it’s a retirement fund.
InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
Social Security is financed through a dedicated payroll tax.
It is a tax. That is a fact. That sentence is literally from the social security website https://www.ssa.gov/news/en/press/how-is-social-security-financed.html as of August 15th 2026.
Ajen@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
Unlike most other taxes, you only benefit from social security if you’ve paid into it. And the amount you receive is proportional to the amount you put in. Practically, it’s far closer to a retirement account or pension than a tax.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Social security is a social safety net, not a personal retirement fund. That’s what my pension, 401k, etc are for.
When social security was instituted with the retirement age of 65, the average life expectancy was 63. It was only “retirement” income for people who had lived longer than expected and would otherwise be living on the street - especially since so many had lost their savings in the Depression - but retirement savings wasn’t its primary purpose.
But people started living longer and stopped saving (either because they knew they had social security coming, or because we suck at planning ahead, or because corporate America sucks donkey balls and people are always living paycheck-to-paycheck) and it became something it wasn’t meant to be.
It should provide income for retirees who have no other income, but like other social programs it should be based on need. Super rich people should pay into jlot just like everyone else, but they shouldn’t be able to collect it because they don’t need it and it’s not intended to take the place of personal savings.
gingersaffronapricat@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
The faces around her are so expressive. I wish i had the energy to give them thought bubbles
idiomaddict@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
The one on the right looks like the real version of the gru meme
HazardousBanjo@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Imagine, for a moment, what a tiny, insignificant fraction of Elon Musk’s income must go to Social Security. And yet the cunt goes on JRE to say it should be abolished.
Billionaires shouldn’t be respected as human beings.
rayyy@piefed.social 16 hours ago
So? Your ruling oligarchs don’t care and they tell most peons how to vote. Now get back to slaving away.
ThatGuy46475@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Social Security is forced retirement savings. There’s a cap on what you pay in because there’s a cap on what you pay out.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
There is a cap because republicans want to kill social security. It’s the same bullshit they are doing to the postal service.
Telodzrum@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Median attorney income in the US is $150k, Liz.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 14 hours ago
She didn’t say “if you’re a median attorney”, she said “if you’re a lawyer raking in millions,” and she was correct.
Telodzrum@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
She went out of her way to pick a profession that doesn’t fit with the second clause of her sentence.
Code monkeys with equity should get the shot taxed out of them too. Skilled laborers who use their sole proprietorship contracting company to absorb personal expenses should get taxed to death. Nurse anesthetists should be paying a massive tax on their hundreds of thousands of dollars of income.
It was a weird shot at a group of people who are largely populated by workers making less than six figures.
DrPop@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
The cutoff for having to pay social security for 2026 is $184500. That’s not that much more than the average.
musicalphysics@discuss.online 15 hours ago
If you make more than $184k you pay zero dollars into social security. The other part is you aren’t getting any benefits.
Aqivex@fedinsfw.app 14 hours ago
Absolutely true. Also just like, fundamentally bullshit, and perfectly reasonable to consider expansion of the cap.
Those currently over the cap reap outsized benefits borne from the labor of those who don’t make the cap. That’s how they fucking made it, above the cap.
There is no moral turpitude in taxing them to fund a social net they won’t directly use, because they’ve been indirectly benefitting from it all along.
The piddling argument I can already hear you making, gets even more ridiculous when you scale past the professionally licensed professions and get into pure capitalists.
This is a compromise being offered, in lieu of the buffet table, and of course they’re gonna be too fucking stupid to accept it because the morons forgot the bread part and all they got left is their shitty circus.
mirshafie@europe.pub 14 hours ago
I pay taxes knowing that I won’t benefit directly from many of my country’s programs. Free school lunches? New train lines? I drive. Free health care? I’m healthy. I’m not a child and I don’t have children. Social housing? I own my apartment.
But the thing is, I benefit directly. It means that everyone around me has a reasonable standard of living. I’m surrounded by healthy, literate people with clean clothes and full bellies. That pushes my standard of living up. I’m happy to be taxed.
musicalphysics@discuss.online 14 hours ago
What piddling argument do you think I’m making when I state facts about the tax code.
nop@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Well that is wrong on both accounts, unless you assume SS will be bankrupt before you can collect anything.
musicalphysics@discuss.online 8 hours ago
Downvote reality all you like, it won’t make y’all any more correct. www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040es.pdf
musicalphysics@discuss.online 14 hours ago
Believe it or not it is true.
gartheom@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Anybody making more than the cap still pays the tax. The cap just means as far as social security is concerned, you only are taxed and provided benefits as though you earned $184k.
musicalphysics@discuss.online 14 hours ago
Go through the irs form here, page 9. Self employed folks making more than the max put in 0 for SS. www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040es.pdf
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 12 hours ago
Dude I’m a milennial, I already accepted the fact that I’m not getting any benefits.
I’m 41 now. I have a funny feeling that in the next 25 years, the retirement age will go up, and the number of people living long enough to collect it will go down.
musicalphysics@discuss.online 11 hours ago
Yep. Same boat.
Burninator05@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
While someone making millions should be taxed at 100% for SS like most of us, think about how much would be in the fund if capital gains were taxed that way as well.