Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[Lane Hall-Witt]

According to the Social Security Advisory Board, 154 million workers paid $604 billion into Social Security in 2001, and outlays of $439 billion (including benefits and administrative costs) went to 45 million beneficiaries. For the purposes of my illustration, I calculated that the average worker paid $3,922 into the system, and the average beneficiary extracted $9,755 from the system: a shade less than 2.5 workers per beneficiary.

Since I was just creating an example, I didn't qualify these figures: for instance, that the 154 million workers are not all full-time employees, but includes part-time employees, seasonal employees (students on summer jobs), and the like -- all employees who pay into Social Security at some time during the year. I have neither read nor tried to calculate how many fully employed workers are necessary to support the Social Security outlays for one beneficiary.

It's worth noting that no individual should be paying as much as $16,000 per year into Social Security: employees and employers are both required to pay 6.2 percent of an employee's gross income into Social Security, up to a maximum of $84,960 in income, for a maximum contribution of $10,535. Given this tax structure, one beneficiary, costing Social Security $9,755, could be supported on $78,670 in income subject to Social Security taxation.

(Medicare contributions and outlays, also administered by the Social Security Administration, are not included in these figures.)

http://www.ssab.gov/actionshouldbetaken.pdf