Stefany Shaheen Touts Endorsement From Group Pushing Payroll Tax Hike On Every Worker

By Leonard Robinson, NH Journal

Stefany Shaheen wants voters to know she has been endorsed in the crowded NH-01 Democratic primary by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), a national progressive organization.

“Honored to have earned the endorsement of NCPSSM,” Shaheen bragged on X. “I have heard real fear about whether Social Security will be there when people need it.”

What she hasn’t mentioned — and has declined to answer questions about — are the NCPSSM’s actual policy proposals.

Under the slogan “Scrap the Cap,” the organization wants to eliminate the cap on wages subject to the Social Security payroll tax and extend the tax on investment income that now funds Medicare so that it funds Social Security, too.

Most notably, the NCPSSM also calls for raising the payroll tax rate paid by every covered worker in the country.

“Our new campaign will help voters identify candidates who champion positive, revenue-side solutions (including adjusting the payroll wage cap), so that the wealthy begin contributing their fair share,” the organization says.

It is also urging voters to reject candidates who support proposals such as raising the retirement age or means-testing benefits.

“Privatization — gambling workers’ payroll contributions on Wall Street — is a non-starter. Full stop.”

In a statement to the Union Leader, NCPSSM President and CEO Max Richtman expressed confidence that Shaheen would be an ally to the cause.

“Electing Stefany, and health care champions like her, is critical to ensuring Social Security gets stronger. She’s earned our trust, both because of the ideas she’s brought to the campaign and her personal commitment to taking on the big pharmaceutical and insurance companies that prioritize profits over patients. Stefany Shaheen is the clear choice to entrust with our seniors’ future.”

While Shaheen has previously announced her support for higher taxes to help shore up Social Security, she declined to respond to NHJournal’s questions about the specific NCPSSM proposals.

For example, just weeks before receiving the NCPSSM endorsement, Shaheen told a group of Democrats that simply rolling back Trump-era tax cuts for the wealthy could help solve Social Security’s financial problems.

“The idea that we can’t ensure the solvency of Social Security is a charade,” Shaheen said. “It’s perpetuated by the people who are grifting while they force us to contemplate things that no one out here is willing to contemplate.”

“We roll back those tax breaks, and Social Security is solvent,” Shaheen added.

In fact, Social Security is not funded by general income taxes. It is funded primarily by the 12.4 percent payroll tax and, secondarily, by income taxes on benefits. Rolling back the 2017 individual income tax rate cuts does not, by itself, put a dollar into the Social Security trust fund.

That 12.4 percent payroll tax is split evenly between employers and employees. Self-employed individuals pay the full 12.4 percent rate but can deduct half when filing their taxes.

In 2026, wages subject to the tax are capped at $184,500. The NCPSSM agenda calls for eliminating that ceiling outright.

Ending the cap would amount to roughly a $3 trillion tax increase over 10 years, according to the Peterson Foundation.

The NCPSSM also wants to raise the payroll tax for workers at every income level — a “very small percentage phased in over a long period of time,” according to its policy statement — in hopes of improving the program’s long-term financial health.

Experts, however, say that would barely move the needle.

A 1 percentage-point increase in the current 12.4 percent Social Security tax would extend solvency until 2035, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. A 2 percentage-point increase would extend the insolvency timeline to 2040.

Some Democrats in Congress are already floating bills to enact some of these policies.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Social Security Expansion Act would retain the current cap but reinstate the tax once wages rise above $250,000. That would leave a band of untaxed earnings above the current cap — an income “doughnut hole.”

The clock is ticking. The 2026 trustees’ report projects that the retirement trust fund will be exhausted in 2032, triggering an automatic 22 percent benefit cut. U.S. senators elected this November will be in office when that happens.

For Stefany Shaheen and her fellow New Hampshire Democrats, the stakes are particularly high, because the Granite State would be hit harder than most.

An analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, modeling a 24 percent across-the-board cut using 2025 trustees data — a reduction the group calls “similarly sized” to the 22 percent now projected — found that about 21 percent of New Hampshire residents would be directly affected, the sixth-largest share of any state. The average monthly benefit would fall by $553, the third-steepest cut in the nation, behind only Connecticut and New Jersey.

In the race for U.S. Senate, Rep. Chris Pappas has also picked up the NCPSSM endorsement, though he hasn’t been as vocal about it as Shaheen. Still, the organization appears to expect great things from him if he reaches the U.S. Senate.

“The Senate soon will have to address the coming shortfall in Social Security’s trust funds, projected to occur in the early 2030s. To prevent a projected 20% reduction in benefits, we need Chris Pappas’ vote in the Senate to ensure that Social Security is strengthened – not cut – and that seniors do not bear the brunt of restoring the system to financial health,” Richtman said.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.