Easy cure for the Social Security issue..This is a no brainer.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

43. Social Security does have a cap on benefits.

It's such that low income people benefit much more from SS than even middle income people. Which is as it should be.

Self-employed pay both sides of FICA.

A lot of people take great pride in getting paid "under the table" so that they don't pay any taxes. And then they are shocked, just shocked when it turns out they can't collect Social Security when they want to retire.

I actually had three years early in my employment history where I maxed out my SS deduction. It was toward the very end of the year each time, but it was a bit nice to have a somewhat bigger paycheck two or three times.

Which has suddenly led me to a somewhat random thought. People who make more than the current maximum, $132,900, depending on where they live, may not think of themselves as particularly well off, but I wonder how they react to the increase in the paycheck after they've reached that income, and the equal decrease at the beginning of the next year. I bet it feels like a cheat, like they're suddenly being taxed unfairly.

I have a cousin who is a nurse in the NYC area and she earns well above that maximum, as does her husband. I know they don't think of themselves as particularly well off, but that's because of the context of their lives. A pricey suburb in their part of the country. One son, adopted, which isn't the single most important thing about him. Like any parents they are doing their very best to provide him with the best possible life.

The cousin recently posted something of FB about how poorly school nurses are paid and as a result schools are having a hard time retaining nurses. I suggested she consider a career change, and she made it very clear there was no way on god's green earth she'd give up her six figure income. I didn't respond back, as I wanted, about not being surprised schools can't retain nurses, because that would have been more rude and more aggressive than I want to be. But still, she's a microcosm of certain problems in this country.

I cannot fault her for wanting to earn as much money as she can in her career. But she represents the continued inequities in various fields. I don't know what the solution is. Schools cannot possibly start paying six figure incomes to nurses. And how can I suggest she, and other nurses have their salaries cut by 70%? All the schools can realistically hope for is a pool of trained nurses willing to work for relatively low money in exchange for the benefits of having weekends, holidays, and summers off, and a schedule that makes it possible for them to be with their own children.

This is one small example of large systemic problems in the labor force.