We all did. Our employers figured out how much they needed to pay for our services, then deducted the “employer portion” from the salary they had decided to pay and that is what we were offered. ```````````
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What page of your high school economics textbook did you dig that load of crap from?
Half of the SS bill is paid by the EMPLOYER
ALL of the Unemployment Compensation Insurance, in most states, is paid by the EMPLOYER.
ALL of the Workers Comp Insurance is paid by the EMPLOYER.
The employee pays none of it.
When the Workers Comp and Unemployment Insurance rates go up the employee does not make less.
You write the check for the “employee’s contribution," and I don’t have to tell you that.OTOH your customer is who ponied up all that money “in the first place.” I put quotes around “first” because in fact of course, money circulates, and there is no “first.”
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.” - John Donne (1572-1631)Same with taxes, they affect the whole economy - not just the guy who is writing the check to the government.Milton Friedman made the point that the actual burden of the government on the economy, tho, is not defined by its taxes. The actual burden of the government on the economy is what the government spends.
But I would add the caveat that setting any tax rate above the peak of the Laffer Curve (or even close to it) is a burden on the economy over and above the revenue the tax produces.
Way I look at it, the government borrowed the Social Security taxes at the point of a gun, then spent it. The government documented that by printing IOUs to itself to nominally - not actually but nominally - create a fund to pay the money back. But of course, if the government ever tries to use the IOUs (instead of securely squirreling them away) they constitute a demand on the Treasury exactly equal to the dollars that the government claimed to be “investing in safe government bonds” but in fact simply spent. So the “Social Security Trust Fund” has no actual economic effect - the government claimed it was “borrowing” the money - but when you and I draw from it, what we are taking is revenue from payroll taxes paid by our own children and grandchildren. That was always baked in the Social Security cake.
There are people who refuse to draw social security, but I don’t see it that way at all. Rather, if you can, try to hand down to succeeding generations enough money to keep your children whole. Limit the effect of the Social Security ponzi scheme on their prospects.