25 Jun Roxanne D. Brown – We Pay Our Fair Share. Why Don’t the Rich?
United Steelworkers (USW) retirees in Granite City, Ill., held a birthday celebration of sorts on Aug. 14 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s signing of the Social Security Act.
These activists, members of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR), delivered a birthday cake to a local member of Congress and posed for photos, all to send a message about Social Security’s importance and the need to protect this lifeline for seniors.
It’s a message that gets more urgent each year, with this vital program hurtling toward insolvency and the Republican-led Congress refusing to take the common-sense measures needed to sustain it.
Without decisive action, retirees face benefit cuts of 22 percent by the fourth quarter of 2032, three months earlier than previously projected, Social Security trustees just warned in a new report on the program’s rapidly dwindling trust fund.
This crisis exists for two reasons: The rich don’t pay their fair share. And most Republicans—many of them wealthy themselves—look the other way.Getty Images
Social Security taxes only the first $184,500 of a person’s income, meaning millionaires and billionaires pay the same into the program as people who work for a living. However, because the rich rake in so much, and at so fast a clip, they finish paying their taxes within hours, weeks or months while most Americans contribute with every paycheck all year long.
Removing the so-called cap on Social Security taxes is crucial to addressing the shortfall and preserving benefits for the long term, as the SOAR members in Granite City like to point out.
It’s the fix that the USW, other unions and our pro-worker allies continue to demand. We fight for Social Security—along with pensions, Medicare and other retiree health care—because workers deserve secure retirements after decades of doing the hard, dangerous jobs that keep this country running.
It’s little surprise that scrapping the cap is the solution preferred by most Americans, who hold up their end with a lifetime of Social Security contributions and deserve every penny promised them in return.
We’re not talking about fun money here.
Americans rely on Social Security to carry them through old age. For many, it’s their main source of income. For some, it’s the difference between living out their golden years in dignity or falling into poverty.
But the rich neither need Social Security nor care about sustaining it. That’s why the Republicans ignore the obvious remedy of scrapping the cap and instead talk about cutting benefits or raising the retirement age, as if Americans should have to stretch a dollar further or work longer hours than we already do.
Many of our neighbors are barely hanging on already because of skyrocketing economic inequality fanned by corporate greed and Donald Trump’s inflationary economy. They can barely make ends meet right now, let alone sock money away for the future.
The SOAR activists in Granite City plan to turn out again this August for another tribute to Social Security. Their message remains the same—scrap the cap, save Social Security and honor the nation’s promise to working people.
From USW.org: https://usw.org/we-pay-our-fair-share-why-dont-the-rich/