Social Security
Like The Times (editorial, “Fair Play for Older Workers,” June 25), Dorcas Hardy (letter, July 6) has apparently forgotten the basic purpose of Social Security. It is intended to replace income lost due to retirement, disability, or death. The program has a social purpose. What social purpose is served by paying benefits to an elderly worker or self-employed person who has substantial earnings?
If the retirement test is abolished, the already high Social Security tax rate on wages will have to be raised higher to pay for these benefits.
The cost will be borne chiefly by the working class and the benefits will be paid chiefly to the upper-middle class.
Abolishing the Social Security retirement test is the kind of idea I would expect from former President Reagan’s commissioner of Social Security, but I had expected better from The Times.
CHARLES E. MAYS
Riverside
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