Obama’s proposed tax hike on high-income earners

Mr.Obama has proposed lifting the SS cap on high-earners, now at around $100,000 per year. Notable:

The U.S. already collects far more Social Security taxes from high earners than other countries do. Social Security taxes here are currently capped at about three times the national average wage — far above other developed countries. In Canada and France payroll taxes are levied only up to the average wage. In the United Kingdom, taxes stop at 1.15 times the average wage; in Germany and Japan at 1.5 times. Social Security is already more progressive than these countries’ pension programs, and Mr. Obama’s plan would make it more so.

Here’s what Bill Clinton said about it as president:

President Bill Clinton considered lifting the wage ceiling modestly, but was skeptical of eliminating it outright. Doing so would “tremendously change the whole Social Security system . . . We should be very careful before we get out of the idea that this is something that we do together as a nation and there is at least some correlation between what we put in and what we get out,” Mr. Clinton said in 1998. “You can say, well, they owe it to society. But these people also pay higher income taxes and the rates are still pretty progressive for people in very high rates.”

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