SOCIAL SECURITY TAX: A tax on wage earnings that's used to fund the Social Security system. In principle, the Social Security tax is divided equally between employer and employee--your share is listed under the FICA heading of your paycheck. In practice, however, employees really end up paying both employee and employer contributes. The reason is that employers need to consider the entire cost of hiring an employee, including wages, fringe benefits, and assorted taxes. The more they pay in these nonwage items, like Social Security taxes, the less they pay in wages. In that the Social security tax is only on earnings, and excludes profit, interest, and rent, it tends to be a regressive tax.

     See also | tax | wage | Social Security | opportunity cost | profit | interest | rent | regressive tax | payroll tax |

SOCIAL SECURITY TAX, AmosWEB GLOSS*arama, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2026. [Accessed: February 12, 2026].

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A phase of the business cycle characterized by a general period of declining economic activity. A recession is one of two basic business cycle phases. The other is expansion. The transition from recession to expansion is termed a trough and the transition from expansion to recession is termed a peak. The technical term for recession, which is generally used by economists and policy makers, is contraction.

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