The key to ensuring the continuation of Social Security is maintaining the Social Security tax at an appropriate level. Without an adequate level of the Social Security tax, there will be no Social Security.

The primary source of income for Social Security is the Social Security tax, usually referred to, incorrectly, as the "payroll tax."

A payroll tax is a tax that a business pays on its total payroll. Individual employees do not have payrolls. They have wages or earnings.

The Social Security tax is applied to every employed (and self-employed) person's wages, and is a percentage of those wages. Every employee's contribution is matched by their employer, effectively doubling the amount of tax collected. (Self-employed persons pay both employee and employer portions.)

The size of the Social Security tax has varied over the years. The tax started, in 1935, at 1% of taxable wages. It has been raised several times since then (and even decreased, in 1968). The last increase was in 1990, when it was set to 6.2% of taxable wages.

In 2011, approximately 1/3 of the workers' portion was provided by transfers from the federal general fund, to compensate for the Social Security tax cut.

The key to ensuring the continuation of Social Security is maintaining the Social Security tax at an appropriate level. Without an adequate level of the Social Security tax, there will be no Social Security.