Social Security: Keep Contributing, Share the Gains

The idea in one minute

Broaden the income supporting Social Security. Recognize a person’s lifetime contributions through a milestone that unlocks a lower ongoing contribution rate. Keep contributions flowing after the milestone. Use any genuinely distributable surplus to improve the benefit floor or give equal milestone credits to eligible people still below the target.

This is Kevin G.’s Social Security Stability and Shared Gains concept, developed from his contribution proposal and September 19, 2026 clarifications. It combines elements of existing reform proposals with a new lifetime milestone. The companion SWOT compares 12 congressional measures. The rates below are candidates for testing, not an enacted tax schedule or a demonstrated solvency solution.

Three rules to build around

The proposed contribution schedule

Before the milestone, the draft proposes 5.2% from an employee and 5.2% from the employer on covered wages, with no annual earnings ceiling. Afterward, each continues at 1%. The self-employed equivalent is 10.4% before and 2% after, subject to precise tax-base rules.

Selected non-wage income would contribute 5.2% before the milestone and 1% afterward. Those are recipient-side amounts, with no employer match. The continuing rate is a central funding mechanism. Lowering today’s rates and later granting milestone reductions also forgoes revenue, so both sides must be measured.

For context, current 2026 Social Security rates are 6.2% each for workers and employers, applied up to $184,500 of annual earnings. Medicare is separate. Congress should adopt the draft’s lower rates only if the complete package funds benefits, reserves and transition costs; a higher ongoing rate or phased reductions remains a design option.

Sources: SSA · Contribution and benefit base

What the lifetime milestone would mean

The draft’s $800,730 example equals 35 × $184,500 × 12.4%: 35 years at the 2026 maximum combined contribution, held constant. It is a useful comparison point, not the actuarial price of a maximum benefit. At a 10.4% combined rate, wages alone would need to total about $7.70 million to reach it, before indexing or credits.

Write the target and historical contributions in comparable wage-indexed units. Give clear credit for pre-reform covered work, including the corresponding employer share. Specify how multiple jobs, self-employment, amended returns and non-wage payments reconcile. A large contribution that crosses the milestone needs a rule splitting the amount between the two rates.

This ledger would measure progress toward a rate reduction. It would not be a personal investment account, a withdrawal balance or permission to buy an immediate maximum retirement benefit. Keep retirement, disability and survivor eligibility distinct. Any extra benefit credit from newly taxed income must be separately defined and funded.

How high earners keep the system liquid

After the milestone, $1 million in annual wages would still generate $20,000 in combined contributions; $10 million would generate $200,000. Another $1 million of covered non-wage income at the ongoing 1% rate would add $10,000. These are arithmetic examples, assuming the milestone was reached before that year.

Against today’s annual cap, the comparison depends on earnings. The 2026 maximum combined wage contribution is $22,878. An ongoing 2% wage rate exceeds that amount above $1,143,900 in annual covered wages, while producing less below that point. Earlier uncapped contributions and new non-wage revenue also matter.

The question is therefore how much income falls in each rate band each year. Continuing receipts support liquidity, but enough money must arrive on time to cover scheduled payments. An early burst of contributions followed by decades at lower rates can have a different result from the first year’s totals.

Sources: SSA · Contribution and benefit base

A reserve-first rule for sharing the extra

Kevin’s additional idea gives the system a clear order of priorities: maintain benefits, build a sufficient reserve, then share gains. A balance above a chosen reserve on one date is not automatically spendable. Recessions, aging, benefit increases and future milestone reductions all create claims on that balance.

A proposed gate would require SSA actuarial certification that both funds can pay scheduled benefits over 75 years, maintain the legislated reserve path, and withstand published adverse scenarios after the proposed distribution. Congress could test reserve floors equivalent to 12, 18 and 24 months of scheduled costs before choosing one. Those are scenarios, not established sufficient reserves.

Use the smaller of the amount above the reserve path and the amount the full cash-flow model says can be allocated without breaching the gate. Treasury and SSA would report the calculation; independent auditors would review it. No distribution would occur simply because collections beat one year’s forecast.

What an equal credit would—and would not—do

Illustration: a $1,000 ledger credit for each of 100 million eligible people creates $100 billion of milestone credits. It does not put $100 billion into the trust funds or into workers’ bank accounts. Its fiscal cost is the future contribution revenue forgone when people reach lower rates earlier, which may differ greatly from the credits’ face value.

Someone close to the milestone could benefit soon; a worker far below it might wait many years. Equal credits are therefore equal in ledger amount, not necessarily equal in value. Compare them with direct benefit relief for people with small checks. Preserve a separate record of actual contributions and granted credits.

For scale, a flat $20 monthly benefit addition for an illustrative 10 million eligible beneficiaries costs $2.4 billion a year before administration and future adjustments. Both the number of recipients and the amount are examples. A permanent increase needs a permanent financing margin. A temporary supplement should be clearly identified as temporary.

Start with an administrable tax base

Begin the costing exercise with defined net investment income: interest, dividends, realized gains and net rental or royalty income, above a debated exemption. Existing IRS reporting offers a starting point. Congress must decide whether the contribution supplements or replaces any existing tax and account for revenue displaced elsewhere.

Keep inheritance and gift contributions as a separately costed module, drawing on wealth-transfer proposals. Specify whether the estate, donor or recipient pays and whose milestone receives credit. Avoid assessing the same transfer repeatedly as it moves through an estate, trust and beneficiary. Value illiquid businesses and farms under explicit rules, with payment terms where justified.

The simplified opening proposal would exclude Social Security benefits, ordinary retirement-account withdrawals, small family gifts and ordinary life-insurance death benefits from the new base. Define exclusions rather than using “all money received.” Removing items from the original broad draft reduces potential revenue; the score must reflect that. Do not count active business earnings twice under wage/self-employment and investment rules.

Sources: IRS · Net Investment Income Tax · Taxing Dynastic Wealth Act · S. 1950 (2019)

Why work has to begin now

The 2026 Trustees project depletion of retirement and survivor reserves in late 2032, with continuing income covering 78% of scheduled benefits then. The often-cited combined 2034 date assumes considering OASI and DI together; they are legally separate. The package must protect both.

Create the financing and benefit-protection legislation promptly while building the lifetime ledger in parallel. Do not postpone urgent funding changes until every ledger feature is ready. This proposal has not been scored by SSA, CBO or the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Sources: SSA · 2026 Trustees report summary

How many people would it take?

Start with 12 organizers: two retirees/survivors, two workers or caregivers, two employer/payroll representatives, two actuaries or public-finance economists, two legislative/tax lawyers, one disability advocate and one project lead. Seek four initial congressional sponsors: a Republican and Democrat in each chamber.

A reasonable planning allowance is 30–50 full-time-equivalent roles for initial design and analysis, growing to 200–400 dedicated or reassigned implementation FTEs after enactment. The 300-person example below is an editorial staffing assumption, not an agency estimate. Count people once as they move between phases.

Participating employers, payroll vendors, financial institutions, tax preparers and existing SSA service offices would also need implementation capacity. Their nationwide workload could involve many thousands of people; a defensible total requires a reporting inventory and vendor estimates. The central team alone cannot deliver the reform.

Seven steps to a working reform within years

This schedule starts with a funded organizing effort in late 2026. Enactment and agency capacity are real dependencies. Initial financing changes could begin within two to three years; an accurately reconciled lifetime ledger could follow within three to five. Surplus sharing starts only if the financial gate passes, even if that takes longer.

The practical price of getting it done

A planning illustration of 300 FTEs at $200,000 annually for salary, benefits and overhead is $60 million a year, or $180 million over three years. That is only a staffing allowance. Systems procurement, reporting changes, employer compliance, security, appeals surges and benefit or tax changes require separate estimates and appropriations.

House Ways and Means and Senate Finance would be central to a federal package. Sponsors must secure committee agreement, a House majority, a Senate majority and presidential signature. Ordinary legislation generally needs 60 senators to end a filibuster when all seats are filled; that is separate from the passage vote. A four-sponsor launch is a coalition seed, not a passage forecast.

The first achievable deliverable is a fully specified proposal and an independent model within nine months. Test the continuing low-rate hypothesis directly. If it funds the promise, the results strengthen the case; if it falls short, adjust rates, the milestone or the surplus allocation before legislating benefits that cannot be sustained.

Sources: U.S. Senate · Filibusters and cloture