Even popping the cap will only help some, because they will have to increase those benefits to higher earners as well.
The FICA tax is flat, but the benefits are very progressive. Lower income people get a much better return on their FICA “contributions” than higher income people do.
There’s currently a maximum benefit amount so they could just raise that some. I saw one proposal that advocated getting rid of the limit, making a minimum insured amount of $1500 (currently the average SS payment is around $1200) and a max amount of double that.
I didn’t check their numbers but they claimed that they did and this would make SS solvent over the course of the baby boomers retirement. It supposedly would also eventually lower the deficit.
I like this plan for several reasons. First when social security was originally passed it was suppose to be one leg of a three legged stool. The other two legs were your own retirement and your companies retirement plan. Well most companies no longer have a retirement plan (I consider 401ks as your own savings for retirement). So an increase in the amount of SS makes up for this somewhat.
Before I get flamed about not being a conservative, I look at social security like our military or roads. We all pay for it and we all receive the benefit to one degree or another. Now I believe social security should have been created by passing a constitutional amendment, not slipped in as a tax, but it is what it is.
As far as claims of soaking the rich, well yes it does. But considering most of the rich are flaming liberals let them put their money where their mouth is and help out the middle and poor classes. Them and the country club Republicans that seem to be as socially liberal as them.
“The FICA tax is flat, but the benefits are very progressive. Lower income people get a much better return on their FICA “contributions” than higher income people do.”.......This is certainly true,but I hope everyone is also aware that a lot of the lower income folks never had a decent opportunity to provide anything for their retirement years on their own, while the higher income folks may not even need Social Security in addition to their own individual plans. A lot of ordinary working peoples incomes barely met their needs while working & at the end there was no pension either. Some may have had pensions that were hardly sufficient for even groceries,in addition to their S.S. payments.