H.R. 6489, the Social Security Reform Act of 2016

[Purple Economist]

The market would bid wages up until the increase was equal to the employer contribution for FICA.

I highly doubt this.

Most people have no idea what goes into their paycheck and how taxes work. This is true across all incomes. I suspect a high percentage of W2 employees would not even notice if the employer FICA contribution went to zero.

The idea that companies would then just pay their employees more seems silly, since those employees were more than happy to work for their previous wage and nearly none of them have any idea how taxes work.

What do you think would happen to wages if the employer contribution was doubled and the employee contribution level kept the same?

[ender]

The market would bid wages up until the increase was equal to the employer contribution for FICA.

I highly doubt this.

Most people have no idea what goes into their paycheck and how taxes work. This is true across all incomes. I suspect a high percentage of W2 employees would not even notice if the employer FICA contribution went to zero.

The idea that companies would then just pay their employees more seems silly, since those employees were more than happy to work for their previous wage and nearly none of them have any idea how taxes work.

What do you think would happen to wages if the employer contribution was doubled and the employee contribution level kept the same?

Probably a net decrease.. why?

[Purple Economist]

The market would bid wages up until the increase was equal to the employer contribution for FICA.

I highly doubt this.

Most people have no idea what goes into their paycheck and how taxes work. This is true across all incomes. I suspect a high percentage of W2 employees would not even notice if the employer FICA contribution went to zero.

The idea that companies would then just pay their employees more seems silly, since those employees were more than happy to work for their previous wage and nearly none of them have any idea how taxes work.

What do you think would happen to wages if the employer contribution was doubled and the employee contribution level kept the same?

Probably a net decrease.. why?

Can you explain why wages react to changes in payroll taxes in only one direction?

The demand curve for labor is going to shift in both cases.  It doesn't matter that the supply curve (employees) is unaffected.  It also doesn't require that employees understand how taxes work.

[ender]

Can you explain why wages react to changes in payroll taxes in only one direction?

The demand curve for labor is going to shift in both cases.  It doesn't matter that the supply curve (employees) is unaffected.  It also doesn't require that employees understand how taxes work.

If FICA taxes

I guess I forgot employers are well known for taking additional or unexpected profit and paying that out to their employees in the forms of raises.

Or something like that.

[Purple Economist]

Can you explain why wages react to changes in payroll taxes in only one direction?

The demand curve for labor is going to shift in both cases.  It doesn't matter that the supply curve (employees) is unaffected.  It also doesn't require that employees understand how taxes work.

If FICA taxes

I guess I forgot employers are well known for taking additional or unexpected profit and paying that out to their employees in the forms of raises.

Or something like that.

What do you think firms will do when their competition starts hiring all of their employees away?

The competition is able to hire them away by paying them more.  They are able to afford paying them more because of the reduced employer FICA taxes.  This is how markets work.

This doesn't happen overnight, but eventually, market forces will drive wages up if the employer FICA taxes are reduced.

[ender]

The thing is there is no incentive for a company to pay employees 7.5% more if their expenses get cut by 7.5% and you can see this in all sorts of comparable examples.

When companies now suddenly make more money, do they convert this to additional pay? No, overwhelmingly they don't.

Maybe the precedent would be different with this but I highly doubt it.

[Purple Economist]

The thing is there is no incentive for a company to pay employees 7.5% more if their expenses get cut by 7.5% and you can see this in all sorts of comparable examples.

When companies now suddenly make more money, do they convert this to additional pay? No, overwhelmingly they don't.

Maybe the precedent would be different with this but I highly doubt it.

I can't wait for ender's Principles of Economics textbook to come out.

[protostache]

Just a quick FYI, this bill is dead because the House adjourned on December 18th. If the bill is reintroduced in the next session it will have a new number.

[Metric Mouse]

Just a quick FYI, this bill is dead because the House adjourned on December 18th. If the bill is reintroduced in the next session it will have a new number.

Thank you for this.  :D

[radram]

The maximum contribution for 2016 is $14,694.00.  You have to include the employer's contribution.  If your employer did not have to contribute this, you would receive this as increased wages.

I lived through the Act 10 legislation that was passed in Wisconsin in 2011.  I can guarantee to you that a slash in benefits(here I mean everything an employer pays less salary) does NOT immediately translate into an increase in salary. If you have bargaining power, a select few might be able to renegotiate that lost benefit back into salary, but buy and large, the reason for slashing a benefit is not to increase wages, it it so the paying organization(company,district, state, etc.) can spend less. I challenge you to take ANY benefit your company provides to you and try to turn it into the equivalent cash in your paycheck. It is not unheard of but becoming harder to achieve. But even if you DID assume the full amount went directly to you.........

The situation with Act 10 in Wisconsin is completely different than eliminating the employer contribution for FICA.  Act 10 was about reducing employee compensation overall for one particular company (government).  Eliminating the employer contribution for FICA would affect all companies and governments the same.  The marginal cost of employing someone would be reduced and would make it lower than the marginal revenue of the last employee in the market  This would cause a shortage of workers and the market would bid wages up as a result.  The market would bid wages up until the increase was equal to the employer contribution for FICA.

I agree it is different. You are saying "it would bid wages up". Is there an example where this happened? Corporate profits are high now and they are hoarding trillions in cash.  Why would THIS sudden influx of added cash cause a floodgate of payments to workers?

So if there was another example that universally reduced outlays for all corporations, it would lead to higher wages for all?  Are you saying the the proposed reduction in the corporate tax rate to 15% being proposed is the real way to achieve the $15 minimum wage? How is this idea different than the concept of trickle down?

 Thank you for your dialog.

[maizefolk]

As I see it the question is whether wages in that particular field are currently at an equilibrium of supply and demand or not. Wages are weirdly sticky (people are reluctant to take pay cuts even after being unemployed and going without work for months or years, and employers very rarely cut employees pay. They either get a raise, same salary, or laid off.)

If current salaries are higher than equilibrium because of stickiness, cutting SS employer contributions won't result in increased pay. It just gets the wages back closer to where supply and demand would actually set them. If wages are at equilibrium, competition should rapidly or slowly (depending on how often employees take new jobs) drive wages up until employing the workers costs the company the same as before.

If there are dozens of highly qualified applicants for every open position, wages in your field are probably higher than the supply and demand equilibrium. If you are lucky to find one qualified applicant and half the time they end up taking a different job offer then salaries are much more likely to be in an equilibrium of supply and demand.

[Milizard]

The thing is there is no incentive for a company to pay employees 7.5% more if their expenses get cut by 7.5% and you can see this in all sorts of comparable examples.

When companies now suddenly make more money, do they convert this to additional pay? No, overwhelmingly they don't.

Maybe the precedent would be different with this but I highly doubt it.

I can't wait for ender's Principles of Economics textbook to come out.

Ender's Principles of Economics agrees with the Principles of Economics that I took in college.  Taxes are not completely transferred, but some are actually paid by the business owners themselves.  I see no reason why this would not be the case in reverse as well.  Some tax cuts may be transferred to price cuts or increased wages, but the business will keep as much for themselves as they can get away with.  Since this tax goes directly to helping the workers in retirement, this would be a net loss to workers overall.

[Purple Economist]

I agree it is different. You are saying "it would bid wages up". Is there an example where this happened? Corporate profits are high now and they are hoarding trillions in cash.  Why would THIS sudden influx of added cash cause a floodgate of payments to workers?

So if there was another example that universally reduced outlays for all corporations, it would lead to higher wages for all?  Are you saying the the proposed reduction in the corporate tax rate to 15% being proposed is the real way to achieve the $15 minimum wage? How is this idea different than the concept of trickle down?

 Thank you for your dialog.

The thing is there is no incentive for a company to pay employees 7.5% more if their expenses get cut by 7.5% and you can see this in all sorts of comparable examples.

When companies now suddenly make more money, do they convert this to additional pay? No, overwhelmingly they don't.

Maybe the precedent would be different with this but I highly doubt it.

I can't wait for ender's Principles of Economics textbook to come out.

Ender's Principles of Economics agrees with the Principles of Economics that I took in college.  Taxes are not completely transferred, but some are actually paid by the business owners themselves.  I see no reason why this would not be the case in reverse as well.  Some tax cuts may be transferred to price cuts or increased wages, but the business will keep as much for themselves as they can get away with.  Since this tax goes directly to helping the workers in retirement, this would be a net loss to workers overall.

Payroll taxes are paid nearly all by employees.  The supply of labor is much more inelastic than the demand for labor.

From Modern Principles: Macroeconomics (3rd edition) by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok:

Many Americans believe "I pay half of this tax, my employer pays the other half," but this isn't quite right.  As we've already mentioned, the person who appears to pay a tax isn't always the person who actualy pays.  In reality, economic research shows that the employer's payment is mostly taken out of the worker's prospective wage; in other words, if your employer didn't have to pay the FICA taxes, your wages would be higher.*  Much of the burden of the FICA tax falls on workers, not on employees.

The * is referring to Gruber, Jonathan. "The Incidence of Payroll Taxation: Evidence from Chile." Journal of Labor Economics 15 (1997): S72 - S101.

From this journal article:

This policy led to a sharp exogenous reduction in the payroll tax burden on Chilean firms; on average, payroll taxes fell by 25% over 6 years.  Using data from a census of manufacturing firms, I estimate that the incidence of payroll taxes is fully on wages, with no effect on employment.

and

The reduced costs of payroll taxation to firms appear to have been fully passed on to workers in the form of higher wages, with little effect on employment levels.

[ender]

You do realize the paper itself states that real wages began dropping for several years in a row nearly immediately after the transition went from payroll taxes to private taxes, right?

And that Chile was experiencing ~20-25% annual inflation as well as a major recession during this experiment?

And that the author of the paper makes an important warning that taxation in a highly inflationary environment (which Chile was at that time) is likely to be different than in a less inflationary environment?

[Purple Economist]

You do realize the paper itself states that real wages began dropping for several years in a row nearly immediately after the transition went from payroll taxes to private taxes, right?

And that Chile was experiencing ~20-25% annual inflation as well as a major recession during this experiment?

And that the author of the paper makes an important warning that taxation in a highly inflationary environment (which Chile was at that time) is likely to be different than in a less inflationary environment?

Yep.

[radram]

I agree it is different. You are saying "it would bid wages up". Is there an example where this happened? Corporate profits are high now and they are hoarding trillions in cash.  Why would THIS sudden influx of added cash cause a floodgate of payments to workers?

So if there was another example that universally reduced outlays for all corporations, it would lead to higher wages for all?  Are you saying the the proposed reduction in the corporate tax rate to 15% being proposed is the real way to achieve the $15 minimum wage? How is this idea different than the concept of trickle down?

 Thank you for your dialog.

The thing is there is no incentive for a company to pay employees 7.5% more if their expenses get cut by 7.5% and you can see this in all sorts of comparable examples.

When companies now suddenly make more money, do they convert this to additional pay? No, overwhelmingly they don't.

Maybe the precedent would be different with this but I highly doubt it.

I can't wait for ender's Principles of Economics textbook to come out.

Ender's Principles of Economics agrees with the Principles of Economics that I took in college.  Taxes are not completely transferred, but some are actually paid by the business owners themselves.  I see no reason why this would not be the case in reverse as well.  Some tax cuts may be transferred to price cuts or increased wages, but the business will keep as much for themselves as they can get away with.  Since this tax goes directly to helping the workers in retirement, this would be a net loss to workers overall.

Payroll taxes are paid nearly all by employees.  The supply of labor is much more inelastic than the demand for labor.

From Modern Principles: Macroeconomics (3rd edition) by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok:

Many Americans believe "I pay half of this tax, my employer pays the other half," but this isn't quite right.  As we've already mentioned, the person who appears to pay a tax isn't always the person who actualy pays.  In reality, economic research shows that the employer's payment is mostly taken out of the worker's prospective wage; in other words, if your employer didn't have to pay the FICA taxes, your wages would be higher.*  Much of the burden of the FICA tax falls on workers, not on employees.

The * is referring to Gruber, Jonathan. "The Incidence of Payroll Taxation: Evidence from Chile." Journal of Labor Economics 15 (1997): S72 - S101.

From this journal article:

This policy led to a sharp exogenous reduction in the payroll tax burden on Chilean firms; on average, payroll taxes fell by 25% over 6 years.  Using data from a census of manufacturing firms, I estimate that the incidence of payroll taxes is fully on wages, with no effect on employment.

and

The reduced costs of payroll taxation to firms appear to have been fully passed on to workers in the form of higher wages, with little effect on employment levels.

Thank you for the book reference. It sounds like a very interesting read.

I agree with you that payroll taxes are nearly all paid by the employer. I do not doubt that wages MIGHT increase and in fact most likely would. My issue is with your comment it would bid wages up to the SAME level as the drop in benefit. I see these as two different issues, and possibly mutually exclusive.

Your first quote helps to prove MY point, not yours. "Much of the burden", "mostly taken" imply not all.

Probably the most similar benefit reduction to what we are talking about would be reduction in the number of companies that offer pensions in the US. 48% of all the private wage and salary workforce were in retirement plans in 1970, triple the amount from 1950 (https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v35n4/v35n4p10.pdf). Since, they were proven unaffordable and reduced or eliminated and now cover about 18% of the private workforce.

One can certainly argue that eliminating pension programs was the necessary thing to to in order to ensure a company profitability (or even its survival). Very few can claim 100% of those outlays were translated directly to an equivalent wage increase. Wages most likely increased some, but if they increased to the same level, the company would be equally unprofitable. To make matters even more confusing, it is also possible that it can cost the company more and the benefit is actually less to go from a pension system to a 401k type retirement plan. It looks like we would both be right (and wrong) in that case.

[packlawyer04]

The thing is there is no incentive for a company to pay employees 7.5% more if their expenses get cut by 7.5% and you can see this in all sorts of comparable examples.

When companies now suddenly make more money, do they convert this to additional pay? No, overwhelmingly they don't.

Maybe the precedent would be different with this but I highly doubt it.

You can certainly have that belief. At my job, I get a report every year.  It shows how much I cost my firm and how much money I brought in. Down to the penny. Every expense, every dollar of revenue. It then shows whether I made the firm money or lost the firm money. Obviously, a few years in the red and you will be looking for a new job.

so yes, social security taxes affect my bottom line and income. I know my firm would certainly pay employees more money.

it goes back to the whole taxing corporations more. Businesses don't pay taxes.  The only people paying the taxes are the people buying whatever the corporation is selling.  Employees are the ones paying social security taxes, not the employer.

Again, this is not complicated. Just take the 12 percent and stick it in a personal account for every American which they can't touch until they are 65. Let that money grow at 8% over the course of their lives.  Then Americans will not have to work as long.

[packlawyer04]

I find it hilarious on a board so founded in math, investments, return on investments, etc. that some of you are such fans of SS which is a complete joke.  SS is one of the reasons so many have to work longer than needed. If I had all of my SS contributions back I would be retired by now.  I'm 35, I would even take the deal that they can keep everything I have paid in so far if I can opt out of SS and future SS taxes from here on out.  It is a complete ponzi scheme.

I'm not a fan, but I've been paying in since the 1980s. Now you want to cut my payout and keep all the Boomers fat and happy with their payouts? Fuck you.

wow, classy post.

[ender]

You do realize the paper itself states that real wages began dropping for several years in a row nearly immediately after the transition went from payroll taxes to private taxes, right?

And that Chile was experiencing ~20-25% annual inflation as well as a major recession during this experiment?

And that the author of the paper makes an important warning that taxation in a highly inflationary environment (which Chile was at that time) is likely to be different than in a less inflationary environment?

Yep.

I guess I wouldn't consider a country undergoing massive inflation, a large recession, and government mandated 18% pay raises to accompany the loss in taxes very compelling evidence that eliminating FICA would result in voluntary pay raises.

Maybe if the USA government similarly mandated that the savings in FICA be converted to pay the conclusions from the paper would be valid. But there are far too many differences (that the authors even call out) for me to see this paper as "well this happened in Chile, it'd clearly happen in the USA!"

[radram]

I find it hilarious on a board so founded in math, investments, return on investments, etc. that some of you are such fans of SS which is a complete joke.  SS is one of the reasons so many have to work longer than needed. If I had all of my SS contributions back I would be retired by now.  I'm 35, I would even take the deal that they can keep everything I have paid in so far if I can opt out of SS and future SS taxes from here on out.  It is a complete ponzi scheme.

I'm not a fan, but I've been paying in since the 1980s. Now you want to cut my payout and keep all the Boomers fat and happy with their payouts? Fuck you.

wow, classy post.

While I agree there was a better way to say it, I completely agree with the message. I am completely against any plan whose solution is no change for some, but great change for others.  If the plan is good, it should be able to be implemented immediately and for ALL. Otherwise, you really see what kind of crap the "new idea" really is.  That is why I support doing nothing over the current republican plan.  Paying 75% is equally crappy for all.  I would also be more receptive to a more immediate reduction in payments but a smaller amount.  For example, if we immediately reduced payments by 10%, how long would that system remain solvent.  20 years of 10% reduction should make things look better, no? The devil is in the details.

[Monkey Uncle]

The graph in this article is particularly telling: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/this-group-loses-big-under-the-gop-social-security-plan/ar-BBxtJPH

"This line shows that projected revenue under the GOP proposals is lower than the projected revenue under current law, because the GOP proposal includes income tax reductions on affluent retirees.The red and light blue dotted line (bottom line after 2050) projects benefits paid under the GOP proposals. This line illustrates that estimated benefits after roughly 2045 are lower under the GOP proposal compared to projected benefits under current law after the projected across-the-board reduction (shown by the solid black line)."

Let that sink in for a moment - The GOP proposal would pay out less in total benefits than if we just let the current system break.  This isn't a fix.  It's an incremental attempt to eliminate SS as we know it.

[MDM]

It's an incremental attempt to eliminate SS as we know it.

It's certainly an incremental attempt to do something. 

The analyses aren't clear, but from the scale on the chart it appears the "25% reduction" does not mean "25% less than what might eventually happen if we do nothing".  Rather, if we do nothing there might be some (20%?) percent reduction when the "surplus" is exhausted, while this proposal might be 25%.

This paragraph from the original article is good (emphasis added):

Readers of our previous blogposts are reminded that the success of any proposed change in Social Security in achieving a permanent fix depends on realization of assumptions made by the Social Security Trustees at the time of reform, and there is no guarantee that these assumptions will be accurate for the next 75 years (and no mechanism in the current law to maintain actuarial balance in the future if the assumptions prove to be inaccurate).  In fact, common sense tells us that it is highly likely that actual experience will deviate from the assumptions made for 75 years or longer.  Therefore, any statements that claim to permanently save the System need to be viewed with a high degree of skepticism.

And, even with all the conjecture and supposition, the conclusion of the original article is not inconsistent with this site's philosophy:

Ann uses these “data points” to determine that she probably should be trying to save closer to 20% of her pay each year rather than the 10% she had been targeting previously.

[exterous]

Got it. I shouldn't think of it as an investment but a social program and that's totally fine.  But if that's the real purpose than maybe all wages should be subject to the tax to make it less regressive.

I'm going to recycle this graph from a previous discussion of social security on this forum. As you can see, social security is a great deal for people who earn a very low average wage over their lifetimes (well 35 highest earning years).

If you averaged only $10k/year you'd get back all of your annual contributions in less than 5 years, and every year you survived after that in retirement is pure profit. At the median household income ($51k/year), it takes ~10 years of retirement to get back all of your money and start earning a profit. At an average household income of $100k/year it'd be closer to 14-15 years before you get your whole contribution back.


That's hardly a regressive program.

It should be noted however, that a very large gap (14 years, last I saw) in life expectancies has opened up between low-income, less educated Americans and high-income, higher-education Americans.  So the duration of those payouts for low-income folks is much shorter.  Which is one of the reasons why moving the retirement age higher is very regressive vis-à-vis low-income folks, who also tend to be manual laborers with shorter career spans due to the physical nature of their work.

ETA:  https://assetbuilder.com/knowledge-center/articles/the-growing-longevity-gap

It's a valid point, but I think the headline number (14 years) is misleading, since that is comparing the 99th percentile to the 1st percentile of incomes (which works out to <$800/year) at the age of 55. At that low an income, something is wrong besides lower levels of education. Severe chronic illness or disability are going to be two common explanations for having income that low, and both of these would tend to reduce lifespan in addition to income.

If we consider the maximum amount you could earn per year and still be entirely before the 1st social security bend point ($10,620), you are still quite poor, but already in the 22nd percentile of incomes. Social security maxes out at $118,500 which is the 94th percentile of income. In the Bosworth & Burke study your link is talking about they only analyzed life expectancy by decile (10 percentile points), but if we compare the 3rd decile (where the 22nd percentile would be) and the 10th decile (94th percentile), the gap in life expectancy at age 55 is "only" 7.7 years.*

Anyway, it's a fascinating point and certainly something important to think about in these sorts of numerical illustrations, thanks for bringing it up and pointing me to the study!

*I am going off of the numbers in Table 6 from the paper itself: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/differential_mortality_retirement_benefits_bosworth_version_2.pdf

Perhaps, but if you look at the MIT study, there's a 10-year life expectancy gap between the top decile and the bottom decile. Ten years is a long time (just ask anyone who's hoping to FIRE 10 years from now!).

While not discounting wealth as a partial cause health choices have a significant impact on this. Researchers attribute up to 33% of the gap to smoking tendencies alone.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/health/disparity-in-life-spans-of-the-rich-and-the-poor-is-growing.html?0p19G=c

[Cassie]

My Mom's grandfather had to live with them at age 70 because he was too old to work and there was no safety net/SS, etc. Her family who was also poor during the depression had to support him. Is that the kind of life we want for people?  If you are a SAHP and the working spouse dies suddenly and you have kids SS gives you a monthly check so you don't starve.  This allows people to retrain or re-enter the labor market, etc. People get disabilities, etc.  I had a friend in a professional job that was extremely smart develop early dementia at 54 and could no longer work.  It is an insurance program/safety net for everyone. I don't want to live in a country where most are so poor and the people with $ have to hide behind gated walls to stay safe. I have visited countries like that and it really sucks.

[rtrnow]

I don't want to live in a country where most are so poor and the people with $ have to hide behind gated walls to stay safe. I have visited countries like that and it really sucks.

+1

[NoNonsenseLandlord]

Why do they always talk about reducing SS, and never talk about reducing SSDI, AFDC, EITC or other similar programs?

[Cassie]

If you are on SSDI you are not living high on the hog. You are too disabled to do any kind of work. They use that to survive. It is based on how much $ you made while working. Also for some people SSDI is temporary until you recover. For instance if you have cancer and are expected not to be able to work for at least a year you may qualify and then once well are expected to go back to work.  My clients that were on SSDI were in extremely bad shape with multiple, major disabilities. In the old days they gave it away too freely. Now you have to keep appealing denials until after about 2 years when you get a hearing in front of a judge that hires a vocational expert to help him/her make the decision.

[wenchsenior]

Why do they always talk about reducing SS, and never talk about reducing SSDI, AFDC, EITC or other similar programs?

With EITC, I suspect a lot of the GOP thinks of that as a big tax cut for working, so they might be more inclined to support it.