ciaries. In the year 2030 it will be even less. In less that 2 decades, the taxes that the government will collect from the workers will not cover the benefits that they are paying out. This will cause the government to either stop Social Security, dip more into debt by continuing to pay, or institute a plan.In light of the problem that our country is faced with, there have been many suggestions of ways to fix Social Security. The proposals include ideas such as raising taxes, increasing the age to collect, cutting benefits, and privatization in stocks. The probable first step to be taken by the government would be to increase the payroll tax. The government has proposed a 2 percent payroll tax increase, which would bring it to about 14.5 percent. They have also thought about increasing the amount of money that can be taxed (currently $68,400). This would generate a vast amount of money, however it would raise the taxes of the middle class to an astronomical amount.Besides increasing the tax, the government could possibly raise the age that people are eligible to receive benefits. It is proposed to raise the retirement age to 70 by 2029 and the early retirement age to 65 by 2017. After that, they would increase the age of retirement to correspond with the rise in life expectancy. Raising the age would serve a dual purpose, it would keep people working longer and it would decrease the amount of years that people would be collecting Social Security. By implementing this, the people would be supporting the fund longer by paying the payroll tax longer, and they would help to save money by not collecting any. The labor unions strongly opposed to this suggestion because it would affect the amount they pay for pensions. It is also advantageous to them to have newer employees who have not worked up to the same wage rate as the senior employees have. The tax and age hike would clear the problem for the near future, but the government wants to s...
