COST OF SOCIAL SECURITY TO THE INDIVIDUAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 September 1947, Page 2

COST OF SOCIAL SECURITY TO THE INDIVIDUAL

Curiosity regarding the amount which a person may pay during his life in Social Security taxation on his wages has resulted in the pieparation by a Dunedin business nran of a table which shows the extent of the contributions made by taxpayeis at varying stages of their working lives. For the purposes of compiling the table the rate of Social Security tax has been taken at Is 6d in the £, and the calculations show that a youth starting work at 30s a week and receiving half-yearly rises of 5s a week until he reached a maximum of £6 would pay £852 into the fund if he worked for 40 years and £969 if his working life was 45 years. Even at higher starting rates youths who never rose above £6 a week would, the table shows, pay amounts close to £lOOO in the course of a normal working life. The table enables people on fixed weekly wages to calculate the extent of their Social Security contributions after any given number of years’ work. A person earning £7 a week, for instance, would pay £273 into the fund in 10 years, £546 in 20 years, £1092 in 40 years, and £1228 in 45 years. For a person earning £9 a week, the corresponding figures are £370. £741, £1482 and £1667.

The Dunedin man said that, reflecting on the results of his labours and on the extent of the figures disclosed, it occurred to him that a person in good health received no return from his contributions and if he died before the age of 60 the amount paid was a “total loss.”