The president is proposing suspending all payroll taxes for the rest of the year as an economic stimulus to counteract the effects of the COVID-19 epidemic.
The federal government took in $1.2 trillion in payroll taxes in 2017. Cutting that revenue would affect the tax bills of middle-class families most, according to USAFacts' analysis of 2017 data from the Internal Revenue Service and the Census Bureau.
But the impact of a potential cut remains unclear as it depends on how the behavior of employers and workers change. Additionally, it's unclear how the Social Security and Medicare programs the payroll taxes fund will make up their shortfalls.
