by Marc Joffe, Cato at FreedomJuly 16, 2024.
Extract:
To determine whether the government is still subsidizing California drivers today, Krit Chanwong and I reviewed a number of local, state, and federal disclosures for the 2022-2023 fiscal year. We used actual figures when available, but were sometimes forced to use budgeted amounts due to a lack of sufficiently detailed actual figures.
by Eric Böhm, RodeJuly 16, 2024.
However, the reality looks a little different. The contract the Teamsters and UPS signed only required air conditioning in vans and trucks purchased in 2024 and beyond. In June, CNN reported that UPS has not yet purchased any new air-conditioned trucks.
As a result, Teamsters members who work for UPS are still sizzling at work this summer– while their boss turned a victory lap into a plum speaking gig at the RNC.
A proponent of O’Brien might argue that labor progress is always incremental and that air conditioning only in newly purchased trucks is better than no air conditioning at all. Reasonable.
But if unions were essential to extracting these concessions from employers, why do Amazon’s non-union delivery workers work in fully air-conditioned trucks?
by Romina Boccia, Cato at FreedomJuly 18, 2024.
Extract:
If the Social Security program continues to function as it does now, an average American worker earning about $60,000 annually could soon face an additional burden of more than $3,000 in payroll taxes, bringing the total payroll tax burden to more than $10,000 per year.
Figure 1 shows how much taxes would rise for an average American worker if Congress were to increase the payroll tax rate from 12.4 percent to 17.5 percent, which is necessary to maintain Social Security’s current benefit structure through 2097. With this higher payroll tax rate, the annual payroll tax rate The tax burden for the average earner would increase by more than 40 percent, from $7,449 to $10,512.
by Robert Posen and Charles Blahous, Market overviewJuly 16, 2o24.
Extract:
The critical relationship between workers and social security collectors is stimulated even more directly by immigration than by increased fertility. This is because immigrants are most likely to arrive as taxpaying adults of working age, while it usually takes nearly two decades for native-born Americans to contribute significantly to payroll taxes. The Social Security Administrators Report 2024includes a sensitivity analysis showing that if future immigration were 35% higher than currently projected, the Social Security funding gap would be reduced by 11%. Immigration won’t eliminate Social Security’s funding gap, but it will help.
And:
As a 2013 actuarial note from the Social Security Office of the Chief Actuary explains that these contributions only benefit the individual if they actually yield something legal work permit and have resident status (or left the US completely), and whether they have contributed long enough to accrue benefits. The vast majority of people who enter the country unlawfully never manage to achieve this status, and furthermore, the note says, “the evidence indicates that a relatively small proportion of those who could potentially receive benefits do so .”
As a result, almost all of these immigrants pay payroll taxes on Social Security without ever claiming benefits. In effect, these immigrants are subsidizing Social Security for the rest of us. These subsidies are significant. For example, indoors 2010Social Security began to show cash shortfalls that have persisted ever since. If it weren’t for that payroll tax collections on the illicit earnings of immigrantsSocial security is said to have started with deficits a year earlier 2009.
The latter is especially important for people (and there are many) who think immigrants harm social security.