Well, at least you understand what it actually is. A surprising amount of people really do think that it's an out-of-the-blue tax hike.

That's the big topic in our office today too. Tomorrow's payday but the money goes into our accounts this afternoon.

sigh

Acknowledging the payroll tax rate is now higher doesn't mean you believe it's a tax hike.

I know. But alot of people don't understand that it was only ever supposed to be a temporary break. Not you, other people.

I wouldn't even say it's higher. It's back to normal, where it always was.

it's higher than where it was, two weeks ago. so i'd say it's gone up.

since 1990, the rate for social security tax withheld was 6.2% .

Because social security wasn't hurting enough, the Tax Relief Act of 2010 said that it would punish it even more and reduce this rate for the year 2011 only to 4.2%

at the end of 2011, the nice IRS people said fuck it, let's do this, and extended the reduced rate through the year 2012 via HR 3765, and HR 3630.

for 2013, the social security rate reverted back to the good old 6.2% after this payroll tax "holiday"

I know all that (well, I'd forgotten the name of the act). It's more 'Because the economy was hurting a lot,' and I'm not sure what role the IRS played in passing legislation to extend the cuts. But I stand by my statement. The most straightforward, common sense interpretation of "the payroll tax went up" is "the payroll tax is higher now than it was before the new year." There are reasons for that, sure, and your chronology is a good explanation for the increase.

Well, if you want to look at all the facts, I myself would call the move "revert back"

If you want to simply look at from one year to the next, then yeah, it "increased"

I don't know, how much "common sense" has to do with it, but with regards to most kinds of sense, usually the more information you have, the better.

I'm going to call the move a "Jack Horner" just to be safe.

Regardless, this could be the nail in the coffin for your mid-tier chain restaurants like TGIFridays and smaller or local food businesses. The ~$80/week less my wife and I will have means fewer dinners out and I assume most others are going to change discretionary spending behaviors instead of savings/investments/etc.

Then this means that mid-tier chain restaruants enjoyed the benefits from a flourish in discretionary spending for the past two years and will now return to their pre-2011 profit levels.

The added income from the past two years, if used wisely, would provide a cushion between themselves and the pre-2011, if any, coffin nails.

I had a nice raise kick in Jan 1. But after the FICA increase, a slight state tax increase, and health insurance increase I'm making about $23 more over a two week pay period.
If there is this much belly aching just wait until the middle class tax increases come. And they will. That's a not a Democrat or Republican statement; just a realistic one.

people need to be making more money than they are. I'd rather see this happen through mechanisms other than the tax code, but if it does the SS tax holiday was a stupid and destructive way to do it given the long term consequences for SS that comes from the lower withholdings.

Well, I think people should be making what the market for that job provides, but otherwise . The holiday was a bad idea for the stability of SS and people who got used to seeing a higher paycheck than they would otherwise be recieving.

Due to capped deductions starting again with the new year I am $300 poorer than my previous paycheck. I am so happy when I hit the limits, it's like getting a raise every May. It feels like more of a raise than my annual raise which just gets eaten up by taxes.

In all honesty, i don't much care what it's called. But i'd say 'increase' is fair terminology, as is 'revert back.' Of course i get the political impetus for the terminology debate, but i take the people here to be smart/rational enough to exempt RM from those battles over narrative/legitimacy. (Don't take that to mean i think you're not smart or rational--that's far from what i mean--and those tactics are employed by plenty of smart people)

As an aside, isn't the money in the SS Trust Fund just left sitting there (as opposed to being invested somehow)? If so, I'd rather we drain it. Money hiding under the bed does no good to society (unless we have some reason to desire a reduction in the supply of money), because money isn't real wealth, it's simply a claim on wealth.

(Although there are implications of government deficits for trade deficits, which would affect our wealth down the road, but given how much generally more profitable American investments abroad are compared to investments by foreign countries in things like treasury bills, I worry less about the long-term effects of our current account deficits than I used to)

The government borrows any SS surplus. Since SS has thus far always run a yearly surplus, the SSTF is basically a couple trillion dollars in t-bonds.

Yeah, I guess what I meant is, if the government didn't borrow that money, what would the money in the trust fund be doing?

It would be invested in non-marketable securities, IE, savings bonds.

I understand what you're saying, and I guess I should have started with the disclosure that I'm an accountant who prepares payroll tax returns so two years ago I said "oh look, FICA withholding is down 2%" and now I'm saying "oh look it's back up"

Otherwise, I don't know much at all about the legitimate rations from political impetits or terminology.