Source: Neil Irwin - The Washington Post

For all the self-congratulatory back-patting from the White House and Congress on the deal that averted the “fiscal cliff” of tax increases—the deal locked in the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for households making under $450,000—they tended not to mention what the deal did, or rather didn’t do, on the payroll tax. A 2 percentage point reduction in the Social Security tax, which hits all American workers, had been enacted at the end of 2010. In the fiscal cliff deal, Congress and President Obama neither extended it further nor agreed on any other policies that might have the similar effect of leaving more money in workers’ pockets.

Read Full Article: Ouch! Your paycheck just shrank