a final note for today - economics
Jul. 22nd, 2011 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veronica_richI'm all posty today, but I've had a lot of thoughts, for better or worse.
In U.S. politics and economics. Some people wonder why the Republicans have such a hard-on for reducing Social Security and Medicare benefits as a way of saving money, as opposed to a lot of other things that could afford to trim some fat (I'm looking at you, expensive military toys). It has nothing to do with level of the funds themselves, since these are things anyone who works pays into and then draws down from later in life when they need it - it's like a savings account. IT IS NOT WELFARE. IT IS NOT SOCIALISM. It's those old people's money.
No, what it has to do with is the fact corporations and business owners don't want to pay 7.65 percent of their employees' wages as their 50 percent match into these funds. This is 7.65 percent over and above salary/wages (with the employee paying the rest; this is roughly just over 15 percent of a person's income - and if you're self-employed like I was for many years, you pay the full 15.2-something all by yourself). This is a sizable amount of money for very profitable companies ... i.e., the ones that buy and pay for our legislators to do their bidding. The executives want to keep that money for themselves. The hell of it is, people are frankly already underpaid in most jobs, and this 7.65 percent is not a gift - it's part of their salary. By reducing SS and Medicare benefits, it opens the way to legally lower and/or eradicate that 7.65 percent employers pay.
In U.S. politics and economics. Some people wonder why the Republicans have such a hard-on for reducing Social Security and Medicare benefits as a way of saving money, as opposed to a lot of other things that could afford to trim some fat (I'm looking at you, expensive military toys). It has nothing to do with level of the funds themselves, since these are things anyone who works pays into and then draws down from later in life when they need it - it's like a savings account. IT IS NOT WELFARE. IT IS NOT SOCIALISM. It's those old people's money.
No, what it has to do with is the fact corporations and business owners don't want to pay 7.65 percent of their employees' wages as their 50 percent match into these funds. This is 7.65 percent over and above salary/wages (with the employee paying the rest; this is roughly just over 15 percent of a person's income - and if you're self-employed like I was for many years, you pay the full 15.2-something all by yourself). This is a sizable amount of money for very profitable companies ... i.e., the ones that buy and pay for our legislators to do their bidding. The executives want to keep that money for themselves. The hell of it is, people are frankly already underpaid in most jobs, and this 7.65 percent is not a gift - it's part of their salary. By reducing SS and Medicare benefits, it opens the way to legally lower and/or eradicate that 7.65 percent employers pay.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-07-24 03:42 pm (UTC)