Better than Finder? Ark Workspace - Software Review - the alternative Macintosh desktop software from Ark Interface - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, Oct, 1992 by Rick Doucette

There is an alluring logic to his suggestion. If I can run my business, pay my mortgage, and feed my family, why can't I provide for my golden years? If I can choose to send my children to public or private schools, if I can choose whether to continue my pregnancy, why can't I choose how to pay for my retirement? In America, shouldn't I be able to choose how to take care of myself?.

I think people should be able to choose. I also think there should be a safety net for those who cannot provide for themselves. That, of course, is the underlying idea behind Social Security, the most sacred of the many "entitlement" programs administered by the U.S. government. So what's the solution?

How about this: Ask both the employed and the self-employed to contribute 7.6 percent of their income to Social Security. The second 7.6 percent, now paid by employers for their employees and by the self-employed themselves, would be open to choice. Employees could let their employers continue to pay the government the 7.6 percent---or put the 7.6 percent into their own retirement account. Similarly, the self-employed could choose to pay 7.6 percent either to the government or into their own retirement account. People who paid only 7.6 percent to the governemnt would be entitled to a smaller retirement benefit than those who paid the full 15.3 percent.

While the self-employed would still have to cough up 15.3 percent of their net income to retirement funds, including Social Security, they would at least be able to keep half of it in their own name. Rather than being seen as just another insidious drain on income, this plan would be perceived as enforced savings, and few can argue with the sanity of that policy.

No doubt there are problems with administering this plan, but it is the beginning of an idea that leads to more equity and choice--two buzzwords in today's political arena--for the self-employed.