Social Security and Low-Wage Earners

Doesn't the current Social Security System help low-wage earners?

The current Social Security system leaves little for low wage earners to save for their retirement:

• Social Security takes 12.4 percent out of a low wage earner's pay.
• After that, there is not much left to live on or put away for savings.
• Low wage earners don't generally have 401 (K) or pension plans or personal savings.
• Those who support the current system underestimate its impact on low-wage earners.

Low wage earners are at a disadvantage in the current Social Security System:

• Social Security benefits vanish when you die, leaving you nothing to pass on to heirs no matter how much was put into the system over a lifetime.
• Low-wage earners die younger so they get less return from the current system.
• If you die before you reach retirement age, you get no retirement benefits and neither does your family.

The families of low-wage earners are at a disadvantage in the current Social Security System

• Because the current system is really a tax, low-wage earners cannot pass along any savings to their children or heirs when they die.
• The current system fosters and promotes the wealth gap in our country. Forcing low-wage earners to pay the Social Security tax makes it harder for them to save any assets to pass along to their children.
• The current system makes it harder to break the cycle of generational poverty, because there is no personal ownership of lifelong savings.

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