TITLE
"The Fallacy of Social Security as a Regressive Tax,"
Journal of Insurance Issues,
George E. Rejda, Kyung Lee, and James R. Schmidt. October 1993,
Vol. XVI, No. 2, pp. 75-97.
ABSTRACT
The Social Security payroll tax is commonly viewed as a regressive tax that falls heavily
on low income groups. The primary purpose of this paper is to determine if social
insurance taxes, primarily the Social Security payroll tax, are regressive, and whether
such regressivity, if any, has increased over time. The major conclusion is that based on
certain realistic assumptions and tax burden ratios, the Social Security payroll tax is
actually a progressive tax over the vast majority of family incomes and is regressive only
over the highest incomes received by a small proportion of upper-income families. The
public policy implications of this finding are analyzed in the study.
|