The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1938-03-24
Billion and Half Payroll
Taxes Levied Above Benefits
UNITED STATES NEWS

Summing up the Social Security pay
ments and the amount of these pay
ments with the amounts paid out, the
United States News, edited by David
Lawrence and printed in Washington,
D. c., has the following to say explain
ing the subject:
The Federal Treasury in fourteen
months has dipped one billion, six
hundred and sixty million dollars from
the pockets of workers and employers.
Taxes levied on pay rolls yielded that
total of dollars to provide Social Sc
curity through old age insurance and
unemployment insurance.
In those same fourteen months the
Federal Treasury paid out fewer than
one hundred million dollars to those
insured against the hazards of old age
and of unemployment.
More than one and one-haf billion
dollars of all of the dollars collected on
pay rolls remained in the treasury or
were paid out for all of the purposes
for which the federal government
spends money. Those dollars met gov
eminent pay rolls, helped build battle
ships, supplied WPA workers with cash
and did myriad other things.
In the total of receipts were more
than eight hundred million dollars from
the pay roll taxes collected to build
unemployment insurance reserves. Title
to these dollars rests with the individual
states but the dollars themselves are
put to work by the federal government
Dollars to Work.
The pay roll taxes collected to build
reserves for general old age insurance
and for railroad retirement insurance
amount to more than eight hundred
and fifty million dollars additional
| Title to these dollars rests with the
thirty million insured individuals, but
again the dollars themselves are put
to work by the federal government.
OF the hundreds of millions of dol
lars in unemployment insurance re-
serves, the states up to March 1, had
withdrawn about forty-one millions to
be used in paying benefits to eligible
unemployed in the % States in which
unemployment insurance is effective.
From the hundreds of millions in ole
/ age insurance reserves the federal gov
eminent up to March had paid out
about fifty million dollars, of which
forty-eight million had gone to railroad
workers and two million to estates OF
insured workers in general business.
This means that less than one hun
dred million dollars worth of Social
Security benefits have been paid out
to date from more than one billion, six
hundred millions of Social Security
tax receipts.
Workers and their employers have
been required by government to save
this amount against the time of a rainy
day. This saving is of money that
might otherwise be used to buy the pro-
ducts of industry and agriculture.
The savings totals 5 per cent of the
affected pay rolls. Four of those
per cent are paid by employers, three
of them for unemployment insurance
One per cent comes from the pay en-
| SSIOpCo VI IIIl1 W lilll1IOlI 1llOlVlOudI
workers.
AS result of this saving by millions
of individuals and employers, the fedora.
treasury is relieved of the need for seek
ing to borrow the billion and one-halt
dollars from banks and insurance COM
panies and others
The reason is that the United States
Treasury, just like bank, does not pile
up in a corner the cash money that is
deposited with it for safe keeping. In
stead, this cash is put to work and the
depoSitor receives an entry in an &C
count book showing that, he has title
to his deposit, plus interest, when it is
due.
Every dollar paid in by individuals
for old age insurance and by states fol
unemployment insurance is credited tc
those individuals or states as a federal
government obligation.
But the cash deposited is then avail
able to be used in meeting current bills
Many people, including a number OF
important government officials, say that
the effect of collecting a much larger
total of pay roll taxes than is currently
paid out in social security benefits tends
to have depressing effect on business
The reason for this expressed view
is that the worker who finds a small