# Pros and cons of raising the retirement age **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 5, 2010, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587 "2010-07-05T04:21:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/61 "2010-07-12T02:48:47Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > LOL, nice. > > However when you say the top 1% pay 40% of federal (income) taxes, you neglect all the other taxes out there. Sales taxes, fuel taxes, FICA taxes, sin taxes, etc. all tend to be regressive. At the end of the day we sadly have a fairly flat tax in the US. The well off pay more in federal income tax and the working class pay more in FICA, gasoline and sales taxes. > > It is misleading to only discuss federal income taxes (which only make up 1/3 or so of all tax revenue). That is like me discussing taxes but only discussing FICA taxes for social security. The wealthy pay a very small % of those because they are capped at 106k. > > After the recession is over and more people are back to work, hopefully we will start getting the deficit under control. There is no attitude of shared sacrifice anymore and everyone wants high services plus tax cuts. It’s a fair point, and I don’t entirely disagree, except to say the working class pays more as a percentage of income–not in absolute amounts–for some of the taxes you mention. Remember, though, that Social Security was not sold as a tax and in fact many of its supporters still pretend that it is not. It’s presented as a retirement account funded by Federal Insurance Contributions. They are, of course, payroll taxes, but the Big Government pretense is that these “contributions” go into a special fund set aside to pay beneficiaries such as the disabled and the elderly. The idea is that one gets back in proportion to what one pays in, much like a pension. Big Government being Big Government, they have long since spent all the money and there is no actual money sitting in a fund anywhere unless you count IOU chits. But you’re right; it’s just a tax, like all other taxes. However, FICA taxes for the wealthy are small because the return is small–again, the idea is that SS is more of a defined-benefit pension fund… ---
**Author:** ![RickG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rickg/32/5174_2.png) [@RickG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickG)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/62 "2010-07-12T21:56:12Z")
For those arguing against removing the salary cap on SS benefits because its not fair when the payments are nearly the same for low and high income beneficiaries, [this post](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/more_on_raising_the_retirement.html) by Ezra Klein has an illuminating chart. While the _average_ life expectancy (at age 60) has increased relatively modestly over the past 30 years, the increase is by no means uniform by income. For the lower half of the income distribution, from 1972 to 2001 life expectancy at age 60 went up about 2 years. For the upper half, it went up by about 6 years. For benefits beginning at 67, the lower-income half would spend 12.6 years on SS, the upper-income half would spent 18.4 years. That’s 46% more time, and likely at a somewhat higher benefit level. Either we should have income dependent SS benefit ages, or high-income workers should pay a _lot_ more into the system. -Rick [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587.md?page=3)