Security in Your Old Age | Page 2

amounting to 3? 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 3? 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 National Theatre Building Washington, D. C.
Region V--Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan:
Social Security Board Bulkley Building 1501 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, Ohio
Region VI--Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin:
Social Security Board 211 West Wacker Drive Chicago, 111.
Region VII--Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina:
Social Security Board 1829 First Avenue North Birmingham, Ala.
Region VIII--Minnesota, North Dakota, and Nebraska:
Social Security Board New Post Office Building Minneapolis, Minn.
Region IX--Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma:
Social Security Board Dierks Building