ACCORDING TO LIZ - Manufactured? That’s correct.
Our vaunted Social Security program has become a football in play between some people seeking political advantage and others who are deliberately draining the system to cover budgetary lapses and generate leverage for personal advancement, both within and outside of government.
In addition, they want the costs to be covered by slashing payments to recipients and again increasing the age at which Americans qualify for those benefits.
But there is one simple solution.
Just lifting the cap on wages on which Social Security tax is paid would extend the solvency of Social Security for at least a decade. And there are other tactics, which may take longer to implement, but will ensure that funding remains robust for future generations.
Social Security was signed into law by FDR on August 14, 1935; tomorrow, Friday, is its 91st birthday.
The first payments went out in January of 1940, and its Trust Funds currently support about 68 million Americans.
Now they privatize-everything-so-our-buddies-can-skim-their-cuts-off-the-top. Profiteers are claiming the trust fund for the program is moribund. That unless more responsible hands take control, it will run out of money within six years.
June’s annual trustees report on the Social Security Trust Funds predicted both the Old Age and Disability Insurance funds would be drastically depleted by 2032. If Congress does nothing, this will trigger an automatic 22% reduction in payments to recipients.
The Congressional Budget Office was even more pessimistic, projecting a 28% cut.
As the cost of living continues its upward spiral, especially for healthcare and other services disproportionately required by retirees, subsisting with less is not the bright future promised by FDR.
In such a wealthy nation, an embarrassing number of the approximately 68 million Americans who currently receive Social Security are already living payment to payment. Lowering payouts would adversely affect their lives, obfuscating the purpose for the program as initially conceived: to maintain the economic dignity of people and their spouses after retirement.
Furthermore, each of the current recipients de facto paid into the system all their working life, a covenant with their government with expectations that morally should not be denied.
The fact that people are living longer should be, and to a certain degree is, primarily offset by the rising wages. But not if the caps don’t keep up with spiraling inflation.
Cost-of-living increases built into the system are skewed because certain expenses – energy, rent, food and transportation – are rising faster than the index and others such as healthcare and related products burden older Americans significantly more than their younger compatriots.
Means-testing to ensure payouts go only to the neediest is patently unfair as it penalizes those who have paid the most into the Social Security fund. As long as people are treated fairly, the vast majority accept paying their share. Which brings up – what is fair?
One factor peculiar to our time is that the incomes of the richest Americans are increasing exponentially as the wealth divide drastically widens and yet they are the ones that pay the smallest proportion of their income to the fund, need the income the least, and have found the most ways to avoid paying their fair share.
A substantial majority of Americans, those making less than $184,500 in 2026, pay Social Security taxes on 100% of their earnings.
However, higher-paid people get a get-out-of-jail-free card on everything above that cutoff. The more they make, the more they take – a 12.4% bonus awarded to only the wealthiest.
Yes. There need to be fiscally responsible caps, but they should be on payments, not on income taxed. Trillionaires, billionaires, and multimillionaires hardly need the extra hundreds a month that can cover rent, heat and medications for the 99%.
A blip in the golden bucket of yachts and space trips.
With businesses folding, jobs outsourced overseas, and dwindling decent work opportunities keeping kids dependent longer – all the while facing flat wages and cuts in hours and benefits, more and more Americans now must work through their 60s and into their 70s to build their Social Security accounts sufficiently to comfortably support themselves in retirement.
With rapid changes in required skills, escalating prices, and the unknowns of artificial intelligence causing economic uncertainty, Social Security is even more essential for assisting retirees to afford life’s necessities.
A 2025 poll found that 65 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Republicans support lifting the cap, “including a significant majority of respondents with annual household income over $200,000.”
The alternative burped up by the Republican Congress of raising the retirement age ought to be a non-starter. It is too often those laboring in lower-paid physical labor or stressful vocations, that can’t be continued as bodies age, who are the most in need of an early, not delayed, retirement.
To give them the blessing of receiving adequate retirement pay earlier cries out for Social Security tax to be charged on passive income – stock options, interest, and capital gains – as well.
A fundamental tension will always exist between extreme wealth and real democracy, especially when it gives those trillionaires the power to influence policymaking and buy elections, to reshape the futures for millions of Americans so they can continue to profit exponentially.
But if everyone put 15.3% of all earnings, including capital gains, into social security and Medicare, what a boon that would bring ordinary Americans, rewarding a lifetime of work and restoring fairness to all.
Why should a middle-class nurse pay a larger chunk of her paycheck than a wealthy corporate executive who gets paid in stocks and bonuses? Why should a factory worker or a teacher or day-laborer pay a greater percentage of their take-home pay than a stockbroker or lobbyist or playboy progeny of plutocrats?
We are many, they are few. Democracy demands submission to the majority of people, not dollars.
Congress must put aside greed and selfish ambition and act now to reinvigorate the vision of FDR, guaranteeing dignity in retirement to all working Americans.
Not consign more and more to an existence eking out their final years warehoused in low-cost senior facilities or kicked to the curb of what were supposed to be the streets of gold for anyone who worked hard.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
