A new opinion piece published by Fox News lays out a three-part plan its author claims would put Social Security on stable financial footing — and it hinges on Americans paying more in taxes and working longer before collecting full benefits.
The piece, written by Ted Jenkin, starts from the premise that Social Security won’t hit zero even if its trust fund reserves run dry, since payroll taxes keep flowing in every payday. The real problem, Jenkin writes, is that those incoming taxes eventually won’t cover 100% of scheduled benefits.
His proposed fix rests on three levers: taxing more income, raising more revenue, and cutting future benefits.
Raise the wage ceiling to $400,000
Right now, workers and employers each pay 6.2% into Social Security, but that tax stops once wages hit $184,500 in 2026. Jenkin’s first proposal would raise that ceiling to $400,000, exposing an extra $215,500 of wages to the tax for someone earning that much. At the current combined 12.4% rate, that’s an additional $26,722 a year from that worker and employer combined. Jenkin estimates the change could bring in well over $1 trillion in additional revenue over a decade.
A slow-motion payroll tax hike
The second plank raises the employee tax rate from 6.2% to 7.2% — but spreads the increase out over 10 years, or 0.1 percentage point annually, with employers seeing a matching gradual bump. For someone earning $75,000, the first year’s increase comes to about $75. By year 10, that same worker would be paying an extra $750 a year at today’s income level.
Pushing the retirement age to 70
The third piece targets younger Americans specifically. Jenkin proposes leaving today’s full retirement age of 67 untouched for anyone born before 1990, but gradually raising it to 70 for those born after 1990 — giving, for example, someone born in 1991 who turns 35 this year, decades to plan around the change.
The politics
Jenkin acknowledges the obvious: Republicans generally oppose tax increases, Democrats generally oppose benefit cuts, and nobody on either side of the payroll relationship wants to pay more or work longer. High earners would be hit hardest by the wage-ceiling change, and younger workers would be the ones told to wait three extra years for full benefits.
Jenkin’s argument is that spreading the pain across all three levers — rather than relying on one big move — is what could make the plan politically survivable, precisely because no single group gets everything it wants.
The piece closes by reiterating that Social Security does not simply
