Speech #1090133542

I believe it would be terribly wrong to arbitrarily deny these hardworking men and women credit for all the payroll tax dollars they paid into Social Security on the wages they earned. But that is exactly what the Ensign amendment would do. Most undocumented workers do pay Social Security taxes. Stephen Goss. Social Securitys chief actuary. estimates that "about thueequarters of otherthanlegal immigrants pay payroll taxes"-threequarters of them. The amounts paid in by them are substantial. Payments into the Social Security system by undocumented workers total $7 billion a year. Unfortunately. most of these workers do not have genuine Social Security numbers. so the money goes into what they call the Social Security Administrations earnings suspense file. This money is identified by the employer who submitted it but not by the individual worker it belongs to. Each year. Social Security identifies approximately 130.000 employers who submitted W2s that cannot be matched to a worker. So the undocumented immigrants account for the vast majority of the funds in the suspense file. The unidentified W2s closely track their geographic distribution and types of employment to that which undocumented workers typically hold. According to an analysis by the GAO. three of the categories of business with the largest numbers of inaccurate W2s were restaurants. construction companies. and farm operations. In order to get credit for the payroll taxes he paid in when he was undocumented. a worker would have to prove how much he paid in while working for a particular employer and when it was paid. The burden of proof would be on the worker. and the worker would only receive credit for payments that the Social Security Administration could verify. Whatever rules and regulations Social Security established. we are for.