Stephen Den Beste's bio page states;
"...or I could drop out and take a standing offer of an Engineer's position at Tektronix at a salary of $12,900 per year. Wealth beyond my wildest imaginings!
These days I pay nearly that much each year in Social Security taxes."
OK, let's weigh his burden. This page lists maximum Social Security liabilities in 2000.
Looks like the maximum Social Security tax for an employee is $4,984.80. Let's give him another grand, and round up, and call it $6000. A little short of $12,900, isn't it?
Well, what about Medicare? That's 1.45% of gross income, with no upper limit on income taxed. Can we make up the $6,900 difference with that? Well, only if we have a total of $475,862 in gross income. Den Beste may make that type of money, but if he does then a $12,900 Social Security tax burden is not exactly a great strain, is it? In fact, it would be exactly 2.7% of his gross income. For comparison, a household with $50K in gross income as an employee would be paying 7.65%, or over 2.5 times the percentage of income paid by that person with the $400+K gross income.
Maybe Stephen is self-employed? That would certainly change things, wouldn't it? Self employed people pay the employers contribution to Social Security. The same page linked above shows us the maximum Social Security tax for self employed filers is $9,969.60. That's getting closer to $12,900, but is still only 77% of $12,900. Plus Medicare? Self employed people pay 2.9% of their gross income to Medicare taxes, so at $80K/annum gross, Den Beste is liable for another $2320, taking his total to $12289.60. That's pretty close to $12,900.
So, if he was self-employed, and making $80,000 a year, then he is telling the unvarnished truth, he does have a Social Security tax liability almost equal to his initial salary at Techtronix in 1975.
If he was not self-employed, then he is counting his employers portion of his liability on his Social Security taxes. Anything in the bio about that?
"I was most recently employed by Qualcomm...."
Sounds like he was an employee, but it may have been contract work. And he concludes the above statement:
"but I am not currently employed."
Doesn't sound self-employed to me. Us self-employed people are never "unemployed", we just don't have work available currently.
My guess is that Stephen likes to count his employers liability for his Social Security tax burden as part of what he "pays" because it sounds better.
I also suspect he wishes he didn't have to pay any Social Security taxes. Congratulations, lucky unemployed ducky, your wish is granted.