That gap is the whole argument. When a company pays a person, payroll tax follows. When it buys software that does the same task, the spend is a deductible business expense — a nudge toward replacing people that sits inside the tax code itself.
It is not only unfair, it is a funding problem. Social Security runs on a 12.4% tax on wages up to a cap; machine work contributes nothing to it. Every official projection of the shortfall is built on demographics — more retirees, fewer working-age people. None of them assume AI displaces anyone.
This site is a standing reference on what closing that gap would actually look like: the mechanisms on the table, who is proposing them, and how to argue for one in front of your own representative.
SOURCES — MANUFACTURING DIVE ON THE WRITE-OFF ASYMMETRY, AUG 2026 · BIPARTISAN POLICY CENTER ON THE 12.4% PAYROLL TAX AND CAP