[anoldafvet]

A couple of more facts:

Democrats raised the retirement age from 65 to 67 years.

Clinton raised taxes on Social Security imcome (85%) of benefit is taxable.

The COMBINED Social Security & Medicare tax used to be 7.65%. The RATS split out the Medicare portion (2.9%) and kept the the Social Security rate at 7.65%, which effectively increased our FICA by 2.9%.

When FDR started Social Security, he never intended to pay any benefits since the retirement age was 65 and the average male only lived to be 59.

[KarlInOhio]

Nope. Still a combined 7.65%. The cap on income subject to the Medicare tax was abolished. You stop paying 6.2% after you hit approx $85,000. You keep on paying 1.45% on any amount. Of course you have to double the percentages to count the amount you employer has to pay.

[Digger]

When FDR started Social Security, he never intended to pay any benefits since the retirement age was 65 and the average male only lived to be 59

He knew that all could not be gotten in one swoop, ergo incrementalism.