How Kamala Harris Can Demolish Trump on Defending Social Security

Kamala Harris has been riding a high of Democratic enthusiasm since taking over for President Biden as the party’s presidential nominee. But as the vice president—and we all—falls back to earth, and all eyes turn to next week’s Democratic convention, here comes the hard part: putting forth a clear vision for America, and crafting the policies that will get us there. Last week, she took her first steps in that direction—and they were rather timid.

At a rally in Las Vegas on August 10, Harris called for eliminating taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers and increasing the federal minimum wage. Her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, has already proposed the former, and economists don’t think it’s a particularly wise policy anyway. “If we reasonably assume that the goal of this policy is to provide tax relief to working-class families, this is an inefficient way to do it,” Ernie Tedeschi, the director of economics at the Yale Budget Lab, told TNR’s Grace Segers. And raising the minimum wage, while a good idea, has been on the Democratic agenda for ages.

Now is not the time to play it safe. Trump is suddenly on the ropes, having been caught flat-footed by the Democrats’ switcheroo, and one big swing could well knock him out. I have an idea for her.

Forget tax breaks. Forget tax credits. Forget intangible benefits from Build Back Better or semiconductors or electric vehicles. Those are all well and good, but they don’t move the needle with voters. And neither do promises to save the country from Trump. That lets him define the debate, be it on abortion, the Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, or whether he supports Project 2025, and it leaves people with no clear idea what the Democrats would do for them.

Harris needs to put forth a bold new policy that defines her campaign, and it has to appeal specifically to Trump’s working-class base. He offers them nothing but psychic income—from kicking helpless migrants, or giving a raspberry to elite postgrads like J.D. Vance (but not J.D. himself)—and in return the likes of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk will keep their tax breaks. Harris can top this with a promise of delivering real income—something tangible that Trump voters can put in their wallets. Hard money.

And Harris can find that money in the unlikeliest of places: Social Security.

Wait: Isn’t Trump already offering something big in that department—a wipeout of all taxes on Social Security benefits? It’s a bluff, except as another way to keep defunding Social Security even more, which has been replacing a shrinking share of earnings since the 1980s. It would take a sucker to fall for this. It will never happen, and if it did, a bigger deficit would open up a shot at the GOP’s biggest goal, which is to shrink both Social Security and Medicare, the only two things that still hold the United States together.

Here’s how to one-up, or rather ten-up, Trump: Raise Social Security benefits, a lot. Stop talking about “saving” the program and start talking about increasing it. In a post-union world, where the defined benefit plans of yore have vanished from the private sector, most people have no other serious retirement plan. Even the middle earners with some 401(k) money may get by, but it’s not a nice retirement. We should not high-five ourselves just because there is enough in Social Security to keep the middle class out of abject poverty.

So, yes, Harris should make a big fat promise that if she wins in November, and Democrats control Congress, the first order of business will be to raise the payout to everyone’s retirement, now and in the future.

Over the years, Social Security has dropped down to paying just 36 percent of the working income for a medium earner (this is based on a medium earner born in or after 1960 who retires at 65, though the normal retirement age for the program has risen to 67). In the early 1980s, that percent for such a retiree was 50. Why not do 50 again, especially now that the defined benefit plans of that era are no longer around? That’s a nice round number—and make it a statutory right.

How to fund it? Let the high earners who back Trump pay. First, take back the 2017 Trump tax cuts and use every penny to fix the future deficit in the system. Extending the tax cuts would increase the deficit by about 1.2 percent of gross domestic product, which coincidentally is the size of Social Security’s long-term shortfall. So that alone would shore up the program.

Then raise the payroll tax that funds Social Security. The current rate is 6.2 percent for both the employee and employer, and earnings above $168,800 aren’t subject to the tax. Raising it to 8.5 percent would get us to 50 percent replacement income for a medium earner (and more for low earners). But that increase assumes nothing else changes to make it less costly. If we eliminate the $168,500 cap, and restore a serious estate tax (let’s say its level in the 1950s), then the tax increase would be smaller. 

Yes, it is still a tax increase. People would have to pay more under this scenario—but for a much better lifetime benefit. White Trump voters now approaching retirement might see that, under Democratic rule, they would have the same 50 percent of working income that people in this country used to get in the 1980s—and that people in other rich countries still do.

Yes, the CEOs will scream. They always scream at paying their workers fairly. Some of the big Democratic donors will scream too. Let them. Who are we for? We are out to defeat a candidate who is a reckless, unserious demagogue. It’s time for a little demagoguery for the good.