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2022 Wage Cap Jumps to $147,000 for Social Security Payroll Taxes

Starting Jan. 1, 2022, the maximum earnings subject to the Social Security payroll tax will increase by $4,200 to $147,000—up from the $142,800 maximum for 2021, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced Oct. 13. The SSA also posted a fact sheet summarizing the 2022 changes.The taxable wage cap is subject to an automatic adjustment each year based on increases in the national average wage index (not the inflation rate), calculated annually by the SSA. Payroll Taxes: Cap on Maximum Earnings Type of Payroll Tax 2022 Maximum Earnings 2021 Maximum Earnings Social Security $147,000 $142,800 Medicare No limit No limit Source: Social Security Administration. The growth of the Social Security wage cap from $127,200 in 2017 to 147,000 in 2022 represents more than a 15.5 percent increase over the past five years.The $4,200 increase for 2022, however, is smaller than the 2021 increase of $5,100, up from the $137,700 maximum for 2020, reflecting constraints on wage increases during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.Inflation Impacts Benefits PaymentsMeanwhile, monthly Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits for more than 64 million people in the U.S. will increase by 5.9 percent in 2022—the biggest cost-of-living (COLA) adjustment since the 1980s—the SSA also announced, reflecting this year’s inflation spike. The adjustment will boost the average monthly retirement benefit by $92 to roughly $1,657. The Senior Citizens League, an advocacy group, called the benefits increase “the highest COLA that most beneficiaries living today have ever seen,” but added that “a high COLA means exceptionally high inflation is impacting consumers.”FICA RatesSocial Security and Medicare payroll taxes are collected together as the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax. FICA tax rates are statutorily set and can only be changed through new tax law.Social Security is financed by a 12.4 percent payroll tax on wages up to the taxable earnings cap, with half (6.2 percent) paid by workers and the other half paid by employers. Self-employed workers pay the entire 12.4 percent.For employers and employees, the Medicare payroll tax rate is a matching 1.45 percent on all earnings (self-employed workers pay the full 2.9 percent), bringing the total Social Security and Medicare payroll withholding rate for employers and employees to 7.65 percent—with only the Social Security portion limited to the taxable maximum amount. FICA Rate (Social Security + Medicare Withholding)Employee7.65%(6.2% + 1.45%)Employer7.65%(6.2% + 1.45%)Self-Employed15.3%(12.4% + 2.9%) Note: For employed wage earners, their Social Security portion is 6.2% on earnings up to the taxable maximum. Their Medicare portion is 1.45% on all earnings. The payroll tax rates shown above do not include an additional 0.9 percent in Medicare taxes paid by highly compensated employees on earnings that exceed threshold amounts based on their filing status:$250,000 for married taxpayers who file jointly.$125,000 for married taxpayers who file separately.$200,000 for single and all other taxpayers.These wage thresholds, set by law, do not adjust for inflation and therefore apply to more employees each year.Employers must withhold the additional Medicare tax from wages of employees earning more than $200,000 …

12/10/2021

Risk Managers: What’s Your Plan for a Public Relations Crisis?

12/10/2021 Comments Off

Companies have no shortage of business risks to avoid, with the COVID-19 pandemic, a labor shortage and rising consumer costs all at the top of this year’s management ticket.One risk that may supersede them all, however, is damage to a company’s reputation. Case in point: According to a recent survey from Willis Towers Watson, 75.5 percent of the risk managers surveyed said their C-suite “was either somewhat or very committed or invested to managing reputational risk.” Nearly 80 percent said their company would be more committed to brand protection in the next five years than it is right now.Facing Down Reputational Risk: An Action PlanIf a public relations crisis does occur, companies need to address it quickly and decisively, before events spiral out of control and consume the company. Corporate decision-makers looking for guidance on handling a public relations crisis can take these steps.Brace for impact. In August, Delta Airlines announced it was going to charge employees an additional $200 per month for health insurance if they didn’t get the COVID-19 vaccine. Since Delta announced the vaccine-related insurance premiums, its stock price has fallen over 5 percent. Feelings on COVID-19 vaccines run hot, so public relations experts say company leaders need to be prepared for the backlash if they insert the corporation’s brand into a heated national health policy debate.To address a controversial decision that could negatively impact a big consumer brand like Delta, be direct with the public, advised John Millen, managing partner at Millen Group, an employee benefits advisory firm in Richmond, Va. “Act quickly and decisively,” Millen said. “This may go against the instinct and guidance of hired consultants, but … own the issue and take the hit.”Delta did wind up keeping the insurance premium intact, but major media companies have pointed out the uphill climb companies face by getting directly involved with employee health decisions. Reflect and collect before reacting. While quick and decisive action is important, try to gather as much information and as many facts as possible before reacting. “Recklessness will make the situation worst,” said Courtney Quigley, a reputational brand consultant with Rize Reviews, a brand management consultancy in Arlington, Texas. “Assign one spokesperson to avoid inconsistent messages or statements. Create a statement and distribute it to all employees. Also, be transparent with your employees on what is happening. Ensure they know how to react to the situation, and [advise them to] steer any inquiries to the assigned company spokesperson.”Build a brand management team that’s ready to go. The primary goal of any executive in a crisis should be to limit the damage and control the problem. “That’s why it’s important to have a communications team—whether in-house or contracted—[that] can handle media relations during a crisis while the executive leadership team works to end the problem as soon as possible,” said Stephanie McCay, director of U.S. communications for PCL Construction, a construction company in Denver. “Media training is critical in the event your executive does have to address the media.”Get the cameras rolling. …

What’s Your Favorite ‘Golden Rule’?

12/10/2021 Comments Off

Many company leaders say they instill their own “golden rules” at work and strive to make those rules stick. They’re gratified when they see their employees follow those rules in the workplace—often when wise guidance is most needed.Here are some of their stories.”Who’s got the monkey?” Rick Eberly, CEO of Chembio Diagnostics Inc., headquartered in Hauppauge, N.Y., says his favorite golden rule is about accountability.”My favorite golden rule for … management comes from the best-read Harvard Business Review article, first printed in 1974, called ‘Who’s Got the Monkey?’ ” Eberly said. “In fact, it is one of two of HBR’s top reprints ever.”Eberly worked for the CEO of a public company in the health care market for over 20 years, and the CEO drilled the “monkey” concept into his managers. “The bottom line is, don’t bring your problems to your boss with no proposed solutions or, in essence, [don’t put] the monkey on your boss’s back,” he explained. “This leads to successful delegation, transparency and accountability throughout an organization.”Once leaders understand that they are accountable for solving problems and improving the operation, it cascades throughout the organization. “That leads to quicker solutions being executed across areas in the business,” Eberly said.There’s no traffic jam on the extra mile. The best golden rules are applied consistently, said Charles J. Read, president and CEO at Custom Payroll Associates Inc. in Lewisville, Texas. “The rule should be followed almost every time,” he said. “There can be rare exceptions.”That goes for Read’s favorite golden rule: There is no traffic jam on the extra mile.”Many companies and company [managers] won’t go further than the required minimum,” he said. “In business, always go further in taking care of people, clients or employees. [That] means bending over backward to help make our clients’ lives as easy as possible. We’re always trying to find better and simpler ways to prevent and solve problems and to make the routine even simpler.” All tasks are our tasks. To Phillip Lew, CEO of C9 Staff, a remote staffing solutions company based in Seattle, a golden rule is any belief or practice that gets the job done according to standards and as quickly as possible. Additionally, it must bolster a positive working atmosphere.Lew’s favorite rule: “All tasks are our tasks.” “It’s a golden rule I want company managers to prioritize,” Lew said. “Instead of saying, ‘Here’s a task. You have until the end of the week to complete it,’ a good manager should say, ‘Here’s a task. Study it. Before the day ends, I want you to get back to me and tell me how I can help you complete this task by the end of the week.'”This way, the chance of getting the task done to standards is greater [and you avoid the risk of] having to redo the entire thing if it’s done incorrectly,” he said.Act on suggestions from your team. Stephen Roe, founder and head of digital strategy at Mexico-based Grow Atom, an SEO agency that counts Salesforce and AT&T …

How Managers Can Move Employees with Disabilities into Leadership

12/10/2021 Comments Off

A recent study found that employees with disabilities often believe they don’t have the same opportunities for advancement within their company as do employees without disabilities.Overall, employees with disabilities are less confident their skills will be used effectively or that their employer will trust them to use their own judgment when performing their job, according to a recent study on The State of Disability Employment Engagement by Mercer and Global Disability Inclusion. It often depends on a manager whether an employee with a disability gets the same leadership development opportunities as any other employee. “Leaders … need to look for ways to give people with disabilities opportunities to be visible in front of a group,” said PwC Tax Director Rob Rusch. “If we live in world where an individual in a wheelchair is visible, then it starts to break down that perception” that someone in a wheelchair may not be capable of performing a certain job.Here are three ways managers can provide leadership opportunities for employees with disabilities.Encourage Self-IdentificationMore companies are encouraging employees to self-identify that they have a disability, particularly if an employee has an invisible disability. People who disclose their disability are more engaged with the organization, their managers and their teams than those who have not disclosed, according to The State of Disability Employment Engagement. “I’m very comfortable identifying my disability, but I don’t have much choice because it’s an external physical disability,” said Rusch, who has a neuromuscular disability and uses a power wheelchair. Although Rusch understands that an employee with an invisible disability might not be as eager to disclose because of concerns about how a manager or co-worker could react, he doesn’t regret being open about his disability. “It has opened resources and doors for me to lean into that identity,” he said.Of the 45,078 PwC employees in 2020, 2.6 percent self-identified as having a disability, up from 1.6 percent of its 43,713 employees in 2018, according to the 2020 PwC Diversity & Inclusion Transparency Report. However, Senior Associate Nesa Mangal said, because PwC is relying on self-identification, the number of employees with disabilities is likely higher.At tech company Intel, 1.4 percent of the 110,600 employees self-identified as having a disability in 2020, said Dawn Jones, chief diversity and inclusion officer and vice president of social impact. Intel’s goal is to increase the percentage of employees who self-identify as having a disability to 10 percent of the workforce by 2030, Jones noted. “This is an important goal for us as we work toward an inclusive and psychologically safe environment where employees are empowered to bring their whole self to work and succeed,” she said.Address Inaccurate Perceptions “Because of first impressions, people with disabilities probably don’t always get the benefit of doubt that [other people] get, especially if their disability is visible,” said Paula Jenkins, a project manager and executive chef at The Galley Dining Hall in Charleston, S.C. Jenkins manages 120 employees, and about 92 percent have a disability. The Galley contracts with Palmetto Goodwill in …

Italy Implements Mandatory Green Pass for Workers

11/10/2021 Comments Off

Gero Bongiorno works as the head of research and development at an industrial machinery company in Milan, which is preparing for Italy’s Green Pass for workers. As the Oct. 15 implementation date for the Green Pass approaches, Bongiorno isn’t worried about his own direct reports, who are fully vaccinated. But there are other people in the company who aren’t. Employers and Employees Prepare for Green PassItaly’s Green Pass—a domestic COVID-19 passport that indicates if someone is fully vaccinated or has tested negative for the virus in the last 72 hours—has been required at restaurants, entertainment venues and other public places, but will soon be required for any employees who are working onsite. “The employer is obliged to verify whether people working in the work environment have the Green Pass,” said Vittorio De Luca, an attorney with De Luca & Partners in Milan. Verification can be done occasionally, he said. “There must be a policy applicable in the company stating who is responsible to check how and whom, which information may and which may not be checked, and what happens in the case of [the] lack of [a] Green Pass,” De Luca said.Green Pass and PrivacyEmployees have three options to acquire a Green Pass. They can get fully vaccinated, which is the encouraged option. Otherwise, they can present a negative antigen test that allows a Green Pass for 72 hours, or they can prove that they have recently fully recovered from COVID-19. The Green Pass itself does not specify which category an employee falls under, and because of the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation, companies can’t ask. “The company cannot ask, ‘Are you vaccinated,’ or ‘Is your Green Pass active because you took the test this morning, or the PCR [polymerase chain reaction] test three days ago,’ ” Bongiorno said. The employer is free to define who is responsible to verify if employees have the Green Pass. “But the people who are in charge must be formally in charge, that must be part of a policy, [and] the policy must be communicated to the employees,” De Luca said. Even then, the people responsible for checking Green Passes can only see if the person has one, and not under what circumstances. The Green Pass app just shows “the employee can get into the company or not, no other information in the Green Pass may be subject to examination,” he said.No Green Pass, No PayThere are consequences for both employers and employees who don’t abide by the new mandatory requirements. If an employee declares that he or she does not have a Green Pass before entering the workplace, or is found to not have a Green Pass when asked, the employee will be turned away and won’t get paid until he or she gets a Green Pass.Though the vaccination is not mandatory, the use of the Green Pass and its consequences have already led to an increase in vaccinations, De Luca said. Bongiorno knows people who were persuaded by the Green Pass requirements at restaurants …

September Hiring Comes In Well Under Expectations

07/10/2021 Comments Off

U.S. employers added a disappointing 194,000 new jobs in September, with hiring in leisure and hospitality leading the way, according to the latest employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.8 percent from 5.2 percent in August. Economists had forecast that employers added about 500,000 new jobs last month.The report reflects nine consecutive months of payroll gains, but hiring has fallen sharply in August and September and total employment is still below pre-pandemic levels. Economists believe that the rate of job growth this year would likely have been higher if not for the COVID-19 delta variant slowing hiring activity.Difficulty finding workers to fill open jobs continues to hold back hiring as well. Evidence shows that many employers are increasingly desperate to hire, offering higher pay, signing bonuses and more flexible working hours to attract applicants, a shift in power that has given job seekers the upper hand in the recruitment process. …

Should Job Seekers Disclose Their Vaccination Status Upfront?

04/10/2021 Comments Off

As more companies consider establishing a vaccine mandate, a trend is taking shape: Job seekers are promoting themselves as “Fully Vaccinated” on applications, resumes and their LinkedIn profiles to stand out. Some experts are beginning to say that vaccination status is a must-have line item on resumes and LinkedIn profiles as employers prepare for regulations that limit hiring to people who have been vaccinated.The Biden administration in September issued a mandate for federal workers and government contractors to be vaccinated by later this year, and a forthcoming Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule will require employers with over 100 employees to get their workforce vaccinated or undergo at least weekly COVID-19 testing. In addition, data from job search sites shows an uptick in job postings that seek fully vaccinated candidates as a condition of employment. As of Aug. 30, the share of job listings requiring vaccinations has soared on Indeed, with job postings per million requiring vaccination up 242 percent from a month earlier. More than 50,000 new job postings on job search site Adzuna require COVID-19 vaccination, up from 35,000 in July and 2,300 in January, with positions in health care, hospitality and information technology the most likely to require vaccine disclosures.Thus, for job seekers, letting potential employers know upfront that they are vaccinated could mean the difference between getting a recruiter’s attention or not. In an August survey of 1,250 hiring managers, nearly 70 percent said they were more likely to hire somebody who indicates on their resume that they are fully vaccinated, according to ResumeBuilder.com, a resume-creation tool based in San Francisco, which commissioned the poll. A third of hiring managers surveyed said they were automatically eliminating resumes that don’t include vaccine status.One reason employers with vaccine mandates may favor candidates who lead with their vaccine status in the application stage is that it completes an important step in the screening process. “Vaccination status will certainly be a factor to hiring managers,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of global outplacement at executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in Chicago. “If they already know you are vaccinated, they can check off that question and will not need to worry about getting that candidate tested every week. It will speed up the hiring process if the HR department already knows in which bucket the candidate goes.”Challenger said it is likely that, in most cases, vaccinated candidates will have an edge over their unvaccinated competition. “In other cases, it depends on the ideology of the hiring manager and the company’s culture overall,” he noted. “Certainly, there are reasonable exemptions that hiring managers will take into account, but generally, at this point, a vaccinated candidate will require less work from a company.”Carolyn Kleiman, a career coach, resume consultant at ResumeBuilder.com, and senior career counselor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., warns that screening out resumes just because they don’t include vaccination status may have negative consequences.”Employers could be losing out on qualified candidates if they use that as a screener, as …

Supreme Court Preview: Employment Attorneys Are Watching These Issues

03/10/2021 Comments Off

The U.S. Supreme Court’s new term begins on Oct. 4. Although only a few employment-related cases have been accepted so far, employment law attorneys are following some key issues that could impact the workplace.”The current docket is very light on employment cases, but there are potentially significant petitions that we are monitoring closely,” said Stephanie Adler-Paindiris, an attorney with Jackson Lewis in Orlando, Fla. Members of the public will be able to listen to live audio of oral arguments again this term—a practice that began in 2020 when the court closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although arguments will be heard in the courtroom this term, access will be strictly limited for now. “Out of concern for the health and safety of the public and Supreme Court employees, the courtroom sessions will not be open to the public,” according to Patricia McCabe, public information officer for the court. “The court will continue to closely monitor public health guidance in determining plans.”Here are the cases and potential issues employers and HR professionals should be watching.Cases on the DocketArbitration. In the upcoming term, the Supreme Court will hear Badgerow v. Walters, which involves a whistleblower claim and whether a federal court has the authority to confirm or vacate an arbitration award in the case when the only basis for federal jurisdiction is that the underlying dispute involved a federal question.”The fact that the Supreme Court took an arbitration case … is important,” said Joe Beachboard, an attorney with Ogletree Deakins in Los Angeles. “It’s a very complicated case.” Essentially, it involves an employee who signed an arbitration agreement and is seeking to bring a whistleblower claim outside of the arbitration forum. Oral argument is scheduled for Nov. 2. Employee benefits. The court will also hear an employee benefits case, Hughes v. Northwestern University, regarding a claim that plan participants were charged excessive fees and plan fiduciaries breached their duty of prudence under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.The participants claim that the university recommended a fund that had high fees and poor results, Beachboard explained. The lower courts rejected the claim, noting that the participants could have chosen to invest in other funds. Oral argument is scheduled for Dec. 6. ACA disability discrimination. CVS Pharmacy Inc. v. Doe involves a disability discrimination claim under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and by extension, Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The high court was asked to decide whether the plaintiffs can bring a “disparate impact” claim for disability discrimination. “Disparate impact” means that a seemingly neutral policy is discriminatory in practice based on a protected category, such as disability.The plaintiffs in this case are living with HIV/AIDS and obtain their medication through employer-sponsored health plans. Their prescription plans authorize “in-network” prices for specialized medication only if it is received by mail or picked up at a CVS pharmacy. The plaintiffs claim the policy forces them to “forego essential counseling and consultation from specialty pharmacists.” CVS argued that Section 504 …

USCIS Proposes Redo for DACA Program

27/09/2021 Comments Off

The long-beleaguered Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA)—originally created by a policy memo in 2012—will be reestablished through regulation, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced.USCIS issued the proposed rule Sept. 28 and is allowing for a 60-day public-comment period. DACA protects over 600,000 young immigrants, known as Dreamers, from deportation and provides them work authorization. The program has been embroiled in a yearslong battle over its legality and is currently in limbo after a federal judge in Texas found it to be unlawful in July. The proposed rule aims to address the judge’s concerns, but mainly would codify the existing DACA policy. The program would carry the same eligibility criteria, including that individuals must have arrived in the U.S. before their 16th birthday; been born on or after June 16, 1981; have continuously resided in the U.S. since June 15, 2007; are currently in school or have graduated or honorably served in the military; have not been convicted of a felony; and do not pose a threat to national security or public safety.The program would continue to grant two years of deportation protection and a two-year work permit for a $495 fee. And recipients could leave the country under a program known as advance parole, which gives them permission to return.Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C., explained that the proposal creates formal regulatory language for granting DACA requests, and for removing someone from the program.The proposed rule also attempts to address some of the concerns raised by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, of the Southern District of Texas. DACA applicants could decide to pay a lower fee of $85 to only receive deportation protection without an accompanying work permit, which has been one of the more controversial aspects of the program.”The regulation makes work authorization no longer a ‘part of’ DACA—but still available,” Reichlin-Melnick said. “The regulation would sever deferred action from automatic employment authorization, allowing applicants to apply for just DACA if they wanted, without the work permit. USCIS is basically recognizing that the work permit portion of DACA could potentially be struck down, and saying that they think if that happens, they may still be able to protect people with DACA from being arrested and deported.” The proposed rule would not change the validity of anyone’s current DACA work authorization.”Today, there are more than 400,000 DACA recipients currently working in the United States—over half are essential workers and 41,700 are in health care,” said Candy Marshall, president of TheDream.US, a college and career success organization for undocumented students.”Codifying the DACA program will enable employers across the country to retain current employees and to access this growing talent pool as they seek to rebuild after the pandemic,” said Marshall, formerly the chief human resources officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.Congressional FixJudge Hanen concluded that the Obama administration circumvented procedural requirements when initially implementing the DACA program via agency memo, rather than going through the formal regulatory process. …

Report: First Year with Employer Critical for LGBTQ+ Employees

26/09/2021 Comments Off

Newly hired employees who identify as LGBTQ+ typically will come out during their first year at an organization or not at all, according to a new global report.”For most LGBTQ+ people, the first year in a new job is critical in the coming-out journey,” Boston Consulting Group (BCG) researchers noted in Why the First Year Matters for LGBTQ+ Employees.Across the countries surveyed, an average of 70 percent of LGBTQ+ respondents said they came out during the hiring process or within the first 12 months of starting their job. After the first year with the employer, only 10 percent came out and the other 20 percent never disclosed their identity as an LGBTQ+ individual.”We observed this broad trend across most of the countries we surveyed, except in India and China, where employees in general took longer to come out or chose to stay closeted: just 36 percent and 56 percent of LGBTQ+ respondents in India and China, respectively, said that they had come out by the end of their first year at work,” the researchers wrote.The findings are based on a global survey of 8,800 people who worked in corporate settings and have high levels of education. Respondents were from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S.Almost two-thirds (61 percent) of respondents identified as LGBTQ+, and the survey was skewed toward those working for companies with relatively advanced LGBTQ+ policies and programs, according to the report. Most respondents (88 percent) were between the ages of 18 and 44. CREATE LASTING IMPACT IN THE WORKPLACEJoin us at the SHRM INCLUSION 2021 conference Oct. 25-27 in Austin, Texas, for three engaging days of learning and networking. You will get the tools, best practices and actionable solutions you need to build a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace. Register Now Coming out is not a singular event, the researchers noted, but “a journey defined by daily decisions and interactions. It can include coming out to colleagues or clients.”Even after making the initial leap to share their identity at work, many LGBTQ+ individuals choose to cover up that information at times,” they wrote. About one-fourth of respondents who described themselves as mostly out at work “said that they would on occasion lie, omit details, or avoid answering questions about their sexual orientation.”About half of the respondents who were not out at work said they did not plan to come out, with more than 63 percent saying their sexuality and gender identity is a private matter.Deena Fidas thinks those who cite privacy as a reason for avoiding disclosure do so because they likely experienced negative consequences elsewhere. She is managing director and chief program and partnerships officer at Out & Equal, headquartered in San Francisco. The organization works exclusively on LGBTQ+ workplace equality through its global programs and Fortune 500 partnerships.”When LGBTQ+ people say it’s nobody’s business, it’s because they faced discrimination,” she said. “The vast majority of …

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