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$184,500 is the current Social Security taxable wage ceiling, the point where payroll taxes stop regardless of how much more a worker earns.
A three-part proposal by Ted Jenkin would lift that cap to $400,000, phase the employee contribution rate up from 6.2% to 7.2% over ten years, and move full retirement age to 70 for workers born after 1990.
Jenkin puts the per-worker system gain from the ceiling change at $26,722 annually, derived from $215,500 of newly exposed wages at the 12.4% combined employee-employer rate, and projects that lever alone could add well over $1 trillion over a decade.
| Lever | Current | Proposed | Per-unit math (reported) | |---|---|---|---| | Wage cap | $184,500 | $400,000 | $26,722/yr per worker at $400k wages | | Employee rate | 6.2% | 7.2%, +0.1pp/yr for 10 yrs | $75 yr-1 / $750 yr-10 at $75k income | | Full retirement age | 67 (born 1960+) | 70 (born after 1990) | Worker born 1991 is 35 in 2026 | Employer rate mirrors the employee side on both the cap and rate changes.
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