Security in Your Old Age | Page 2

a month from the Government as long as you live
after your 65th birthday.

IF YOU SHOULD DIE BEFORE AGE 65
If you should die before you begin to get your monthly checks, your
family will get a payment in cash, amounting to 3½ cents on every
dollar of wages you have earned after 1936. If, for example, you should
die at age 64, and if you had earned $25 a week for 10 years before that
time, your family would receive $455. On the other hand, if you have
not worked enough to get the regular monthly checks by the time you
are 65, you will get a lump sum, or if you should die your family or
estate would get a lump sum. The amount of this, too, will be 3½ cents
on every dollar of wages you earn after 1936.

Taxes

The same law that provides these old-age benefits for you and other
workers, sets up certain new taxes to be paid to the United States
Government. These taxes are collected by the Bureau of Internal
Revenue of the U. S. Treasury Department, and inquiries concerning
them should be addressed to that bureau. The law also creates an
"Old-Age Reserve Account" in the United States Treasury, and
Congress is authorized to put into this reserve account each year
enough money to provide for the monthly payments you and other
workers are to receive when you are 65.

YOUR PART OF THE TAX
The taxes called for in this law will be paid both by your employer and
by you. For the next 3 years you will pay maybe 15 cents a week,
maybe 25 cents a week, maybe 30 cents or more, according to what you
earn. That is to say, during the next 3 years, beginning January 1, 1937,
you will pay 1 cent for every dollar you earn, and at the same time your

employer will pay 1 cent for every dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year.
Twenty-six million other workers and their employers will be paying at
the same time.
After the first 3 years--that is to say, beginning in 1940--you will, pay,
and your employer will pay, 11/2 cents for each dollar you earn, up to
$3,000 a year. This will be the tax for 3 years, and then, beginning in
1943, you will pay 2 cents, and so will your employer, for every dollar
you earn for the next 3 years. After that, you and your employer will
each pay half a cent more for 3 years, and finally, beginning in 1949,
twelve years from now, you and your employer will each pay 3 cents
on each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. That is the most you will
ever pay.

YOUR EMPLOYER'S PART OF THE TAX
The Government will collect both of these taxes from your employer.
Your part of the tax will be taken out of your pay. The Government
will collect from your employer an equal amount out of his own funds.
This will go on just the same if you go to work for another employer,
so long as you work in a factory, shop, mine, mill, office, store, or other
such place of business. (Wages earned in employment as farm workers,
domestic workers in private homes, Government workers, and on a few
other kinds of jobs are not subject to this tax.)

OLD-AGE RESERVE ACCOUNT
Meanwhile, the Old-Age Reserve fund in the United States Treasury is
drawing interest, and the Government guarantees it will never earn less
than 3 percent. This means that 3 cents will be added to every dollar in
the fund each year.
Maybe your employer has an old-age pension plan for his employees. If
so, the Government's old-age benefit plan will not have to interfere
with that. The employer can fit his plan into the Government plan.
What you get from the Government plan will always be more than you
have paid in taxes and usually more than you can get for yourself by
putting away the same amount of money each week in some other way.
Note.--"Wages" and "employment" wherever used in the foregoing
mean wages and employment as defined in the Social Security Act.

WHERE TO GET MORE INFORMATION

If you want more information, write to the Social Security Board,
Washington, D.C., or get in touch with one of the following offices:
Region I--Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, and Connecticut:
Social Security Board 120 Boylston Street Boston, Mass.
Region II--New York:
Social Security Board 45 Broadway New York, N.Y.
Region III--New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware:
Social Security Board Widener Building Juniper and Chestnut Streets
Philadelphia, Pa.
Region IV--Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, and
District of Columbia:
Social Security Board