📋 The Future of Social Security (AARP Article - updated)

[Winter2025VA]

FROM THE ARTICLE: The truth about its current status and options for boosting its future stability.

By John Waggoner and Andy Markowitz, AARP.

*** There are 249 Comments on the AARP website. Stop by to add yours. ***

Published March 01, 2022.

➡️ Updated March 26, 2025. ⬅️

For decades, financial advisers have used the metaphor of a three-legged stool to describe America’s retirement system: Late-life security, the thinking goes, rests on having a healthy pension from work, ample personal savings and a monthly Social Security payment.

So much for that. Pensions that guarantee income for life have largely disappeared from private-sector workplaces, and too few Americans have accumulated a nest egg that can provide substantial monthly income throughout their retirement years. According to the Federal Reserve's most recent Survey of Consumer Finances, the median retirement savings for U.S. households ages 55 to 64 is $185,000.

USE THE LINK BELOW TO READ THE ARTICLE: https://www.aarp.org/social-security/benefits-current-status-future-stability/

[GailL1]

Now let’s see - since they are asking for some suggestions to help the financial health of the Trust Funds -  I have thought of a few new ones.

1.  start taxing the employer-side of employer supplied health insurance of the employees at the contributions level for Social Security.  After all it is an employee benefit as any other and those other employer benefits are tax as compensation for FICA.

2.  REMOVE the earnings cap and allow anybody to keep working and paying into the system AFTER they have retired with a SS benefit.  The only caveat would be that any contributions made AFTER you are receiving benefits would NOT be credited to you for added benefits.  But you can keep working as long as you want and keep paying into the system while continuing to work.  That way the Trust Fund increases but the benefit doesn’t.

I won’t are credit for this one - I heard it from a previous SS Trustee - I like it.

NOTE:  @roachme - you are a person near and dear to me and my views - Thanks for all your comment on the AARP article - you can now take up the fight since I am getting very, very old and already have several other places that take up my time/

[roachme]

@GailL1 Thanks, Gail, but I have to disagree with you on your #2.  Removing the cap brings about $300 Billion a year in new SS taxes.  Since all wages are taxed for Medicare, it's easy to reverse the math to figure out close to the additional SS tax.  The $300 Billion sounds good but at least $200 Billion of that will have to buy bonds from the Treasury, which puts all that money into the hands of the Congress, if they don't remove the cap from payments, too.  They may use it to reduce external debt or they may just spend it on something new and let the budget deficit remain the same level.  Anyway, in 10 years that grows to $2.6 Trillion more in National Debt plus another $300 Billion in bond interest over the 10 years.

If they remove the cap on benefits to keep the annuity affect intact, rather than a wealth transfer, then the formula will probably still be changed to be very lopsided such that it takes 20 years for those above the current cap to recover just the taxes they paid, or by allowing the benefit formula to stay the same it will maintain the Trust status quo and we're still looking at an exhausted Trust, just not as soon.

The other suggestion of not counting work income toward increasing benefits after starting SS doesn't amount to much in my experience.  I continued to work for substantial income after starting SS and the max the income increased my SS was $11 a month.  Last year, it gave me a $1 increase and this year will probably be none.  The reason is all income after age 60 is not indexed to a higher value and eventually isn't replacing the lowest indexed values.  To put it in comparison, I've gotten less than $300 extra in total SS so far for over $44,000 paid in SS taxes by me and my employer since my starting SS.  The Trust is really making out on this deal already.

Hope to see you around here a long time.

[GailL1]

@roachme 

Maybe I wasn’t clear in my post - I am not talking about the tax max cap  - I am talking about the earnings limit cap if somebody retires before the month of their FRA - you know the old “we will deduct $ 1.00 for ever $2.00/$3.00 over this earnings limit”

For 2025, if a person retires before the month that they reach FRA and keeps working, we limit how much they can earn before penalizing them with a benefit reduction.  IM), we should never limit earnings - let them work as much as they want and keep paying contributions into the SS system(with their employer) - however, since they have “retired” officially at whatever EARLY age - the only difference will be they will not receive any credit for these contributions (not theirs or their employers).  Their earnings will be put on pause until after they reach their Full Retirement age and keep working, then their credit for these years with further work will continue.  

We should NEVER discourage work and continuing to contribute - but we can limit the benefits calculations for those that are only semi-retiring.  This in and of itself should make a person think twice about actually retire before FRA and keep working but if they do, lets not limit the working only limit the increase in any benefits during that period before the month they are FRA.

I hope I have made this clearer now.

I really don’t care what they do with the tax max cap but it has to make fiscal sense - it has to help with the solvency problem, and they need to pay a benefit even if small by adding bend points to the benefits formula.  But from what I see from the actuaries - removing the tax max cap for all earnings, only helps substantially IF there is NO benefit given and to me that turns the SS system into a welfare system  - not what it was designed to be.

I also believe that people do think this does a lot more than it really does to fix the solvency problem - it definitely would not be the only change that has to be made to fix the solvency problem.  I would also exert caution for unintended consequences - the Actuaries call this the “behavioral response”  because employers have a wide range of how an employee receives the benefits of employment - and I quote from many of their analysis on this subject:

. . . we assume employers and employees will redistribute

total employee compensation among taxes, wages, and other compensation. This behavioral response is projected to reduce somewhat both the payroll tax revenue and the scheduled benefits that would accrue in the absence of this behavioral response.

[roachme]

@GailL1   Ah ha!  Okay, I see now.  However, counting the earnings while collecting SS before FRA doesn't seem to add much to a monthly SS benefit.  I used the SSA AnyPIA program and a person gets between $10-25/month extra, if they got to keep their benefit without reduction.  And they only get an increase if the new earnings are more than one of their top 35 indexed wages. 

Someone making the average wages of $55K-$65K, to get that extra $25/mo, would currently give up about 11 months of SS payments due to the earnings limit withholding.  So they are either going to wait until FRA or completely retire to start SS.  And if they maintain a low enough income to keep all of their benefit, they are going to be paying $120/mon of their own benefit because of the SS tax on their wages.  And like you said, if they continue to earn then they continue to pay more into SS, but under the current procedures they also wind up leaving whole months of payments in SS, too, which means even more funds left in the Trust than just the new payroll SS taxes.  Say the age 62 monthly SS is $1400 and they work for $56K.  They are contributing $578/mo to SS and getting $1400 in return without the earnings limit test reduction.  So the Trust is laying out $244/mo net after including the employer $578 going to the employee benefit.  With the earnings limit in place, SSA will keep 11 months of payments (1400 X 11) plus get 2 x $578/mo, in taxes and only pay out $1400 for one month.  The Trust comes out ahead with the earnings limit test in place, IMO.

I do see the point of if they work and keep all of both wages and benefit.  They would keep working probably but the numbers say to me the Trust comes out shorter on funds if we allow that.  The earnings limit test made me decide to keep working and not take SS until after my FRA because my income would drop so much if I completely retired.  If I'd taken SS early, the earnings limit would have reduced the benefit to $0 until I completely stopped working.  My part time work now is even enough to reduce it to $0.

[Tonster521]

roachme, are you sure about $300 Billion per year if the cap is removed? In another post, Gail1 provided an analysis from Brookings wherein $700 -$800 Billion is indicated for the period 2025 to 2035. Maybe you included Net Investment Tax which is an additional 3.8% Medicare tax for folks with investment income above certain thresholds. For example, a CEO with 100,000,000 shares of stock that pays $1.00 dividend per year will pay an additional $3.8 Million in Medicare tax pursuant to the ACA. So, using Medicare tax revenue needs to be adjusted for items such as NIT, IRMMA, etc. I think that after deleting other sources of Medicare tax revenue you should have a realistic number for earnings without a cap.

[roachme]

@Tonster521  Hi, no, the figure only includes Medicare taxable wages.  The methodology was to take the income from payroll wages from the 2023 Medicare Trustees Report and reverse the math to get total taxable Medicare wages.  Then I repeated that for Social Security using the SS Trust Fund data.  Then I subtracted the SS total wages from the Medicare total wages to get the amount of new wages that would be subject to the SS taxes.  It was a little over $2.7 Trillion in additional taxable wages for 2023, and would yield $237 Billion in SS taxes to start, and most likely reaching $397 Billion by 2035 based on National Average Wage Index increases.  The Medicare payroll taxes does include the 0.9% extra for the over $125,000/$200,000 wage single/married people but that amount should be negligible compared to the total income.  The 0.9% is only paid by the employee, not the employer.  The IRMAA and NIIT are not part of the payroll taxes.

The Brookings study is lower because they only increased the taxable maximum ceiling to 90% of all taxable wages.  My numbers reflect a 100% taxable wages to make the SS taxes reflect the Medicare taxes.

BTW, the law (ACA) for NIIT does not specifically say the money has to go to Medicare. An early draft sent the funds to the Part A trust fund but that was removed.  Currently, all of the info I've found says the NIIT funds are deposited into the Treasury revenue fund to assist ACA costs.  How about that for a "Say what?" moment?  The 3.8% was chosen because it was the total of the high earner amount from the employee and employer, 1.45%+1.45%+0.9%.

The IRMAA increases a persons percentage of the total Part B cost, so IRMAA is part of the Medicare Part B premium income.  Regular Part B premiums are 25% of the projected cost per person for Part B.  The IRMAA increases the premiums to 35%, 50%, 65%, 80%, and 85% of the full cost of Part B.

I didn't include an additional interest on the new tax income before.  That would amount to an additional $5 Billion a year to start and if the Trust funds keep growing, so does the interest.  Up to around $85 Billion per year by 2035.  Total interest by 2035 would be in the $400 Billion range.

[Tonster521]

@roachme Thanks for your reply. I agree with the concept that you used. However, the payroll numbers are significantly different. We may not be using numbers from the same page of the Trustee Report. For example,I used Medicare payroll taxes of $367.2 Billion which at 2.9% suggests a taxable payroll of approx. $12.662 Trillion if I did the math correctly. However,the OASDI payroll taxes indicate $1.233 Trillion which at 12.4% suggests a taxable payroll of approx. $9.944 Trillion. The difference of approx. $2.7 Trillion at 12.4% will explain the $300 Billion number. Essentially, for every $1 Trillion difference equals $124 Billion in FICA taxes. So, if developing an estimate of only 90%, the FICA tax will equal about $111 Billion per $1 Trillion. However, Brookings is much lower perhaps $70 Billion per year. There are probably other factors that need to be addressed. One factor that may have an impact is the amount of Medicare tax that government employees contribute to Medicare, but do not contribute to OASDI. Another factor is Net Investment Tax which I was not able to find in the Trustee Report. On $1 Trillion at 3.8%, that amount would be $38 Billion. I am providing a link to the FRED wherein the BLS indicates that total wages and salaries hover around $11 Trillion, yet a third number. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BA06RC1A027NBEA#:~:text=Observations,Release%20Date:%20Feb%2027%2... Using $11 Trillion at 12.4% would about $1.36 Trillion in FICA Taxes which is about $100 Billion more than current amounts of $1.2 Trillion. However, we do not know how much of the BLS number is for government employees that only pay Medicare taxes.

Lastly, if the $300 Billion number is accurate, the SS funding is solved. The Treasury already has the money via Federal Income taxes. The Treasury can debit the General Fund and credit the SS Trust. It is the same as moving money from the right pocket to the left pocket. 

[roachme]

@Tonster521  Hi again.  Those look like the numbers I used to come up with the $300 Billion mid-range figure.  However, you brought up something I forgot and that is all of the state government workers who pay Medicare taxes but not Social Security.  I should have caught that since my wife was one of them back in the 80s.  That's an estimated 5.9 million people out of 164 million (3.6%) that pay Medicare but not Social Security.  I have no idea where to find the numbers to back them out of the total Medicare taxes.

Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT) is not part of the Medicare income.  It's going into the Treasury general revenue account and being used to help pay for ACA (Obamacare) subsidies.  It was originally supposed to be for Medicare but they pulled that instruction before passing the law.

I don't see how moving money from the right pocket to the left pocket analogy works here.  The $300 Billion is the tax amount collected IF, and only if, the $2.7 Trillion were taxed for SS on top of the regular income taxes the Treasury takes in.  The Treasury doesn't have that money to move around by my logic.

[Tonster521]

@roachme Thanks again for your reply. I am hoping other folks, perhaps with an accounting background, may offer some explanations. As you know, folks in Non-Covered employment (government pensions-some Fed,State,County,Local,School Districts, Police,Fire,etc.) contribute to Medicare, but do not contribute to OASDI. You indicated that number is approx. 6 million. That may be on the low side. I am providing a link that indicates there is approx. 20 million government employees. However, I do not know how many are in Non-Covered employment. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2024/econ/ASPEP%20Summary%20Report%20..., the link copied and pasted correctly.I think I entered the copy function twice. Anyway, this can explain a significant amount of the difference why the Medicare payroll is greater than the OASDI payroll. For example, $1 Trillion of payroll is approx. $95 Billion (12.4 - 2.9 = 9.5 percent).Is it realistic that 19 million can have a payroll that equal $1 Trillion? The answer is yes. If I did the math correctly, $1 Trillion divided by 19 Million employees equals an average pay of $56,632 which is very low for most government employees. Many teachers with tenure in urban areas are probably closer to $100,000 or more. Administrators can average in around $150,000 to $200,000 or more. The Administrator in my local school district was paid $300,000 plus perks. I missed that "gold rush"when I opted to work in the private sector (manufacturing). We do not know how many of the 19 Million are working in Non-Covered employment. You can substitute different numbers to arrive at a reasonable guesstimate. Although in concept your approach makes sense, you need to adjust the Medicare payroll numbers so that Medicare and OASDI are on as level as a plying field as possible.

Another factor that I have not resolved is the accounting for the Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT). You may not be aware that the name of NIIT is called "Additional Hospital Insurance Tax on High Income Taxpayers" as initially enacted pursuant to the ACA. I am not aware if Congress has amended that language. You are correct that NIIT was initially written for Medicare Part A. However, when the rules for the "Cadillac Tax" on certain high cost health plans were changed (they affected Union Plans especially plans with first dollar coverage), the ACA needed to offset that shortfall of revenue. So, Congress moved money from the right pocket to the left pocket to offset the shortfall. This is not a complicated transaction. It is done on a computer keyboard essentially a debit and credit. Similar to how we pay bills if you use a computer rather than write paper checks. Ibviously, the Treasury does not have 100% of the FIT to pay for all government activities. So, they issue marketable Treasury securities to cover the shortfall which is called deficit spending and adds to the National Debt. It should be no surprise to folks that follow the math of the SS Programs, that the unfunded liabilities will be impossible to be covered unless monies or income streams currently not taxed become taxable for FICA and Medicare purposes.

[roachme]

@Tonster521 I think we crossed wires on the subject of NIIT.  I understand the right/left pocket exchange but it's not moving money for the benefit of Medicare.  That's why NIIT money doesn't show up in the Medicare Trustee Report.  NIIT brings in about $60 Billion per year from 6+ million returns and would make a noticeable line item in the Medicare report income tables.

[Tonster521]

@roachme As I previously advised, NIIT is called "Additional Hospital Insurance Tax on High Income Taxpayers" as initially enacted pursuant to the ACA. This tax money is referred to as the "unearned income Medicare contribution" in the U.S. Tax Code. There needs to be transparency as to where this tax money is credited. And, if credited to the General Fund of the Treasury or a sub account of the Treasury related to the ACA, there should be some type of paper trail authorizing the Treasury to credit the ACA rather than the Hospital Insurance Trust (aka Medicare Part A). If the Treasury can credit the ACA, IMO they could credit this additional tax money to any other account including the OASDI Trust if authorized to do so. Medicare and OASDI are more related being benefits of the SS Program.

It appears you found info indicating NIIT is about $60 Billion per year which at the 3.8% tax rate represents about $1.579 Trillion of investment income. This is significant and its accounting should be transparent to the public.

[GailL1]

I am kind of rush for time at the present - but if interested here are some links that seems to have a  very good analysis of all the changes legislators have put forth for years and years - 

SSA.gov - Summary of [Proposed] Provisions That Would Change the Social Security Program  

Brookings.ed - 02/11/2025 - Fixing Social Security 

same as above but in pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20240211_CHP_Primus_FixingSS_Final.pdf 

[Tonster521]

@GailL1 Thanks for your effort. I would probably still be looking for your posting of the SS Funding analysis. The SS Actuary indicates that there are two different amounts of Payroll with about a 25% spread. 

The 90% threshold is a confusing concept. Many may interpret that concept to mean only 90% of your Covered Earnings (CE) are subject to FICA taxes. In reality, 100% of CE are FICA taxed up to the Cap. So, from a mathematical perspective, folks with CE above the Cap pay less FICA taxes on a percentage basis. And, more importantly, folks with Non-Covered Earnings (NCE) pay zero (0%) FICA taxes and may receive SS Benefits via a Spouse's CE at 100% with no offsets. On a percentage basis, this provision is better than buying Microsoft at its public offering back in the early 1980's. I think For the folks who accumulate 40 Quarters or some amount less than the required 35 years after years of FICA tax free NCE should be required to pay an equivalent amount of FICA tax or receive a prorated SS Benefit based on their amount of CE to all Earnings. For example, work 40 year total; 30 years NCE; 10 years CE, SS Benefit is only 25% (10 divided by 40). I think most would agree that this a fair provision. 

At any rate, I am not sure where I read that the 90% threshold could be met by increasing the Cap to approx. $350 K to $400 K. Because of Income Inequality in the USA, the Cap needs a sizable increase just to get it to a 90% threshold. Sorry for the delay in responding, I do not read as fast as I used too. It took me days to read and then some to comprehend all the numbers and concepts.

[roachme]

@Tonster521  The 90% is of all wage income.  So if all wages totaled $10 Trillion, the SS max taxable threshold would be set to collect SS taxes on $9 Trillion of that total.  Government NCE employees pay partial FICA taxes, the Medicare tax portion, but not the SS taxes, so they don't pay 0% FICA.

"And, more importantly, folks with Non-Covered Earnings (NCE) pay zero (0%) FICA taxes and may receive SS Benefits via a Spouse's CE at 100% with no offsets."  Where are you getting the NCE spouse can get benefits at 100%?  It's only 100% if the CE spouse dies since January 2024 and the survivor is over FRA.  NCE spouse's receive 32.5%-50% for spousal based on age, or 71.5%-100% survivor based on age.  And both can also be reduced more for Earnings Test limits, whether CE or NCE, prior to FRA.

Your prorated SS for NCE people is very similar to what the Windfall Elimination Provision (1983) did that Pres. Biden and Congress repealed.  Pres. Biden voted for WEP in 1983.  To me, WEP/GPO was justified.  Because of that, now my wife is qualified to receive a 50% spousal based on my benefits, and 100% of my survivor benefit.  I don't see that as fair to people who have two SS benefits.  When I die, my wife can keep her pension and file to collect my SS, whereas, a two SS family survivor only gets to keep a single SS benefit.  To make it even more unfair, her pension is almost double my SS.  I truly believe that is going to push forward a drive in Congress for a surviving spouse to keep both SS benefits after the death of one to match up with the government retiree entitlements.

[Tonster521]

@roachme I suggest you revisit the benefit provisions of the Social Security (SS) program (officially called the Old Age, Survivor and Disability Income) including the benefit formulas for Workers, Spouses and Survivor. OASDI taxes also known as FICA payroll taxes fund the OASDI program (along with Self Employment taxes). Most of us simply call the OASDI program "Social Security". Certain government employers do not participate in SS and their employees do not pay OASDI taxes (FICA payroll taxes). Those employees' earnings for OASDI purposes are called Non Covered Earnings (NCE).

Medicare (officially called Health Insurance for the Aged and Disabled) is another program enacted in 1965 by Social Security Amendments. Medicare is funded by another separate tax on all earnings including earnings of those employees who are not covered by the OASDI. For Medicare, these earnings are called Covered Earnings (CE). It should be noted that Medicare taxes have always been reported separately on workers' paychecks as Medicare taxes and not known as FICA Medicare taxes.

With regard to my sentence that you restated in your reply, I used the word, "may" which expresses a possibility. The word, "may" is used when something is possible or to indicate a possibility. I am providing links that should inform you that the amount of benefit entitlement for Spouses and/or Survivors and the amount of benefit one elects to receive may be different amounts due to Worker SS Benefit offsets, early reduction factors, etc. As you may not know, Spouses and Survivors Benefit entitlements are reduced or offset by the amount of their SS Worker Benefit. Spouses and Survivors with a government pension are no longer offset. They are eligible for 100% of their SS Benefit entitlement whatever that amount is based on the applicable SS Benefit formula. Their SS Benefit may be reduced for early reduction factors, earnings before FRA, etc.   https://blog.ssa.gov/do-you-qualify-for-social-security-spouses-benefits-2/#:~:text=62%20years%20of%...:

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/program-explainers/government-pension-offset.html#:~:text=The%20GPO%...,

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10007.pdf

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/oasdi.asp

Hopefully, I copied and pasted the links correctly.

[roachme]

On the part of your comment I quoted, we may have just misunderstood each other.  It seemed to be you were saying a NCE employee could get a 100% benefit based on the CE's earnings, as in equal to the CE's 100% SS benefit, instead of 50% of the CE PIA benefit amount as a spouse.  I was just pointing out that only a survivor may get a 100% CE benefit amount.  I thought you might have found a source document that could justify a NCE spouse of a living CE getting a 100% PIA spousal benefit.

I'm quite familiar with most of the normal benefit formulas for SS benefits, including all of the reduction methods and the increase for the Widow(er) Limit Provision (RIB-LIM).  I normally use decimal number formulas for calculations but SSA uses fractional formula to calculate benefits.  They have an explanation in the Program Operating Manual System (POMS) that explains the difference but the typical calculation amount difference is only 10 cents at most.  I still work part time and I always know in January what my new amount will be in Sept-Oct after SSA finally adds in my previous year earnings to the calculation.  Then they up my benefit and give me the back pay to January.  I use the SSA AnyPIA program that calculates OASDI, survivor, and disability benefits for exact benefit calculations.

[Roxanna35]

185,000  accumulated by 64 year old. And that is the median?  Are you kidding? Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck,  and they have always counted on the SS money that they have been putting all their lives, and that was taken out of their salaries.
I wish that I had known that and opted out of the SS and saved my own mon   I may even have more than just the 185,0000 that the article says.

[roachme]

@Roxanna35  If you saved and invested it yourself, you would have needed to buy very large life and disability insurance policies to cover for anything happening to you in those first 40 years.  SS is an insurance that pays for disability and survivors and the investment amounts in those first 20 years of working wouldn't have been enough to cover you and your family if something happened to you before retirement.  Example, my first 10 years of working only collected $4886 in SS taxes.  Even with investment, it's not enough to really help out a surviving wife take care of 2 kids.  All of my SS taxes invested at 5%, would only be $200K by age 60.  Not enough to last to 20 years into retirement.

[Winter2025VA]

[Monday 4/7/25]

I agree with you Roxanna @Roxanna35 , it might have been better to INVEST but who knows with the rollercoaster rides with that. Good to hear from you!!! Take care, Nicole  👵

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[*** @Roxanna35 wrote 3/31/25:

185,000  accumulated by 64 year old. And that is the median?  Are you kidding? Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck,  and they have always counted on the SS money that they have been putting all their lives, and that was taken out of their salaries.
I wish that I had known that and opted out of the SS and saved my own mon   I may even have more than just the 185,0000 that the article says. ***]

---

[GailL1]

@Roxanna35 

Unless you worked for one of the state government jobs that have opted out of the Social Security system, then you wouldn’t have been able to opt out of the Social Security system with earned income. 

[BalbonisMoleskine]

It's the median, which means that a lot of Americans don't live paycheck to paycheck. Those who do wind up in a pickle that makes them a cautionary tale that others can learn from. 

[GailL1]

Right, I have never been without something to fall back on - even being self-employed for many years, when there was nothing coming in at all during some economic downturns, I at least had something to sell or some savings or credit to get me thru so we could at least eat and have shelter.  Those times just taught me how I did not want to live so from then on - I made a plan and Savings came 1st.   

[BalbonisMoleskine]

Me, too. I've been self-employed almost all of my career. So no pension. No health insurance. I pay both the employer and employee halves of FICA.

[BalbonisMoleskine]

"Introduce more progressivity. Typically referred to as “means testing,” this approach calls for adjusting the size of your Social Security payments based on your wages, wealth or income. The concept is to protect people below a certain annual income or wage level so they get full benefits; those who are financially healthier would sacrifice some or all of their Social Security payments."

Instead of basing it on income/wage, why not wealth? For example, if you have $500,000 or more in investments, savings and your home, your SS benefits could be cut by 50% so that those who have nothing can have something. 

Before anyone sputters, "Bbbbut, $500,000 is not a lot of money," consider what the article says: "According to the Federal Reserve's most recent Survey of Consumer Finances, the median retirement savings for U.S. households ages 55 to 64 is $185,000." That means you have a lot more than most households. 

Who's ready to pony up?

[roachme]

@BalbonisMoleskine   I wouldn't want to do it unless they stop taking SS taxes out of my pay after I start benefits and remove the income tax from my SS benefit.  SS is already means tested with the income tax and if someone is still working they are paying part of their own monthly benefit every payday.  Between the income tax on my SS and the payroll deduction, I'm giving back 37% of my SS every year already.  As far as the $500K level, my house is worth more than that in California and the property tax plus insurance is almost 3 of my full SS payments.  You'd have a hard time buying a house here for less than $500K unless it's 100 years old, small, and run down.  My first house was built in 1969 and it would cost over $780K today.