Patty Murray, U.S. Senator, on Social Security: “We need to scrap the cap so the richest people in the world pay their fair share”

The Social Security trust fund is predicted to run out of funds sometime in late 2032 or early 2033 according to its trustees unless Congress does something to shore up the program’s finances. The Social Security Administration would still be able to pay beneficiaries after that point, but insolvency would mean that benefits would need to be cut.

The United States faced a similar situation in the early 1980s, but lawmakers on Capitol Hill managed to come up with a bipartisan solution using a combination of the limited levers they had available. One of the four levers is raising Social Security taxes.

The Social Security trustees have calculated that the current 12.4% rate levied on American’s payrolls, that amount is split 50/50 between employers and employees except for the self-employed who pay full amount, would have to go up to 16.67% to avoid future cuts. While a majority of Americans agree that taxes should be raised to save Social Security, they are much more in favor of getting rid of the payroll tax cap for those earning over $400,000.

Senator Patty Murray called for just that in a post on social media recently. “Elon Musk, the literal richest man on the planet–the world’s first TRILLIONAIRE–is paying the SAME amount in Social Security taxes as an electrician who makes $185,000 a year. That’s outrageous,” she wrote, adding, “We need to scrap the cap so the richest people in the world pay their fair share.”

Last month, former SSA commissioner Martin O’Malley pointed out that “only 6 percent of [Americans]... experience any benefit from the cap.” Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich said that when Social Security was fixed back in the 1980s, the trustees didn’t anticipate the income inequality which has exploded over the ensuing decades.

He explained in a video he posted online that the top 1% have seen their share of the national income skyrocket 206% more by 2021 compared to 1979 versus just 28% more to the bottom 90%. At the same time though the cap on income taxable by Social Security has only changed with inflation based on the Cost-of-Living-Adjustment established each year. In 2026, the maximum income subject to Social Security taxes is $184,000.

This has cost the Social Security system roughly $1.4 trillion since 1983 explains Reich. “The solution is clear. It’s time to scrap the cap and make the rich pay more in Social Security taxes,” he said.

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