pressure was high - dangerously so - and wound up driving straight to the.TSCL believes that benefits should be increased, not cut. To do this while providing enough funding to keep the program solvent for another 50 years, 78 percent of TSCL's survey participants favor raising the taxable cap on earnings so that Social Security taxes would be collected on all earnings. Currently only earnings up to 8,500 are taxed for Social Security. "This means the nation's highest earning people, like the CEOs of some of the nation's biggest companies, are pocketing a huge tax break on all earnings over the cap," says Cates..President Trump has said that he wants to deliver on his promise to lower drug costs, but bipartisan legislation is required to cap costs and provide real cost savings for older Americans. If Congress fails to take action, older Americans will bear the increasing burden of higher drug spending through depleted savings, higher taxes, and a lower standard of living..Finally, one new cosponsor signed on to Rep. Allyson Schwartz's Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act this week. Rep. Bob Filner announced his support, bringing the total up to twenty-eight..According to the most recent Social Security Trustees report, Social Security already pays out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes. In 2019, Social Security paid ,047.9 billion in benefits versus receiving 4.5 billion in payroll tax revenues. Taxation of the benefits of retirees provides another .5 billion in revenues, and .8 billion is money from "interest" earned by the assets of the Social Security Trust funds, special non-marketable bonds. Social Security trustees forecast that the program will be depleted by 2035.."The Senior Citizens League strongly opposes this effort to overturn Americans' access to health care," Johnson asserts..Gradually, over 20 years, raise the Social Security payroll tax rate that workers and employers each pay from 6.2% of earnings to 7.2%. A worker earning ,000 a year would pay about 50 cents a week more each year, matched by the employer..Again, those projections were made prior to the effects of the pandemic. You can be sure when this is all over, the projections will be much worse..Mary Johnson, a policy analyst for The Senior Citizens League, said earlier this week: "The combination of higher premium costs and lower premium subsidies that people would receive under the replacement plan would make health insurance unaffordable for millions of low and middle income Americans … Anyone who cares about his or her health coverage should contact their Members of Congress now."
