According to this article from Bloomberg, printed in the Lewiston Sun journal, “no major private employer has stepped forward with plans to forgo withholding the levy from workers’ paychecks” as permitted by the recent executive order. This is consistent with our impressions, stated earlier, that the order will only pose problems for W2 workers once the deferral ends.
“Employers don’t see any benefit to their employees from the payroll tax deferral, and to implement that they would be a significant administrative costs and risks,” The article quotes mark Zandi from Moody’s analytics.
I couldn’t agree more. The initiative reminds me of that Cosby show episode where Rudy Huxtable doesn’t want to eat her Brussels sprouts, so she sits and stares them letting them get cold, all the while knowing she’s not only going to have to eat her vegetables, but cold ones at that. Of course, if 80s megamom Claire had roasted them with pancetta and balsamic vinegar like we do in my house, perhaps the outcome would have been different. In other words, maybe lawmakers should provide some real incentives to workers and employers if we want to improve the health of the economy.
Delaying our vegetables isn’t an incentive, it just tastes worse, and in this case, it puts workers at a likely hardship when that time comes.
