Please don’t forget that Social Security is also the most blatantly regressive tax. The 2022 upper limit of $147,000 means that poor and middle income people will pay the full percentage but richer people will pay a much lower percentage of their incomes. Unlike other flat or progressive taxes, the effective percentage of Social Security tax the rich pay decreases as their income increases.
This more than evens out after retirement, when up to 85% of Social Security benefits for the so-called "rich" is taxed, AGAIN, as regular income. The poor are not as likely to have as much of the additional income as the higher earners and so their benefits are tax free.