More substantive would be a fix to Social Security's dirty little secret of favoring the rich
More substantive would be a fix to Social Security's dirty little secret of favoring the rich: Annual wage income above $94,200 is completely untaxed by Social Security. While an average worker pays 6.2% of her income to Social Security, a CEO earning $1 million pays only 1% of his salary. As is, only 83% of all wages are subject to Social Security taxes, so this would increase annual revenues by nearly 20%, or $100 billion a year, keeping Social Security solvent. Other worthy proposals include increasing the minimum wage, providing child care for working parents, expanding health care and lowering college costs. But the most direct way to address inequality is to reimpose higher income tax rates. Current rates are extremely low, historically-speaking. Under President Dwight Eisenhower's Republican administration, the maximum marginal tax rate was 87%. The Reagan tax cut of 1981 dramatically lowered this to 50%, then again to 28% in 1986. Since then, no surprise, our nation has seen a steady rise in wealth disparity.
Source: Inequality has run amok. Do leaders care? Dmitri Iglitzin and Steven Hill New York Daily News http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/06/27/2007-06-27_inequality_has... _amok_do_leaders_care.html