Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey,
thinks he knows what will build up social security and encourage Americans to
save for retirement- offering a payroll tax cut to any American who works past
the age of 62.
The tax, which is at 12.4% requires workers to
pay half themselves and puts the burden of the other half on their employers,
but Christie hopes to do away with that for older workers.
His belief is that this proposed tax cut would
give older workers an incentive to work longer. He also explains how he
believes it would help Social Security as a whole by reducing the number of
workers who start claiming it the moment they hit the age of 62.
On the flipside of the coin, he also hopes to
encourage more young workers to enter into the workforce by getting rid of the
payroll tax for workers under the age of 21.
While Governor Christie’s proposal has
certainly garnered a lot of attention, both positive and negative, he actually
isn’t the first to propose this type of tax cut. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida
did the same thing, and, outside of the political spectrum, many economists and
tax experts have also proposed the idea.
While it is obvious that many people have seen
the potential benefits of this decision, others see problems with the idea. The
biggest complaint among detractors is that the tax break would harm the
reserves of the Social Security program. These people believe that, instead of
eliminating the payroll tax for older and younger workers, the federal
government should increase the maximum income that can be subjected to Social
Security tax.
It is abundantly clear that there are all kinds
of feelings and opinions surrounding these ideas, but what isn’t clear yet is
what will happen in the future with regards to this matter. For now, only time
will tell.
