Many non-parents will never collect a dime after paying into SS for a lifetime.
Those non-parents won't have been subsidized. But many parents will also pay into SS for a lifetime, and pay to raise the workers that actually fund SS, and then never collect a dime. They will have received a much worse deal than the non-parents.
And being a parent or not does not change the payroll tax rate. Since this tax rate is flat and not lowered for those with kids, I consider it irrelevant for my discussion about tax breaks for married couples with kids. I don't expect it to change, this is just forum discussion.
You seem confused by how social security works. When you pay social security taxes, that goes to older people and the disabled. That does nothing to ensure you receive anything. If you want to receive anything, somebody has to make sure younger workers are around to work so that money can be taken from them and given to you. The cost of producing those workers is pretty high. So if you don't have kids and you receive social security, you are typically getting a pretty massive subsidy from your cohorts who did bear the costs of producing workers (and from foreign parents or other parents who are not eligible for SS for some reason or another)
And the 'fixes' to social security, even if they were implemented, wouldl do nothhing to change the fact that recipients will be receiving money taken from younger workers, and for recipients who did not bear the.birden (sic) of raising any kids that fund social security and Medicare, that's a massive subsidy from those who did.
Not everyone pays into SS, such as certain government jobs and the unemployed, including kids who don't have jobs (that you mentioned). Many others will never collect a dime because they won't contribute for 40 quarters before dying or leaving the workforce. There are many details to the data, but the payroll tax rate is set with no advantage/disadvantage for couples with kids (although couples with get additional benefits on the receiving end!).[/quote] Which has nothing to do with anything. If you want to look at any individuals, then you could get a rough comparison as to who is giving more than they are getting. But if you want to claim that non-parents subsidize parents, you have to look at it generally, and on average, non-parents do eventually collect social security from younger workers, and the cost of producing those young workers was primarily born by parents.
In the long run, those kids will probably be collecting SS as well.
Which is irrelevant to whether non-parents are being subsidized. If those kids get social security, it will be because somebody raises kids that they can take money from.
And just like me, after paying into it over a long career, I expect a return from the system in another 16 years.
The "system" is younger workers. You paying social security taxes didn't pay for younger workers, it paid for older people's benefits (or just general government spending to the extent they were paid when SS taxes exceeded outlays).
And I don't mind paying more payroll tax in the meantime to help shore up Medicare and SS.
That's only possible to the extent SS is running a deficit (and I think it's basically a break even proposition over the next couple of years). But to the extent it is running a deficit and higher taxes can shore it up, but I note that you are offering to pay more payroll tax, and not just give money. WHich makes it sound like you are offering to pay higher taxes for 16 more years, and presumably everybody esle would be stuck paying those higher taxes while you collected benefits for the next 20 or 30 or more years?
I support our seniors, who are finding more of their SS is taxable every year (a built in tax hike) based on absolute thresholds that aren't indexed to inflation.
That's great. But has nothing to do with whether your social security will have been subsidized by parents.
