Letter: Unfair to raise age for Social Sec.

Raising the retirement age is often put forward as part of the solution for shoring up Social Security ["Get real about saving Social Security," Editorial, Sept. 14]. The justification is that with life expectancies rising, people are collecting benefits longer.

One important fact, however, is seldom mentioned: Life expectancy varies with income. People with higher incomes live longer. Raising the retirement age, therefore, would mean a bigger cut in lifetime benefits for lower-income people than upper.

This is doubly unfair, because lower-income people are taxed on all their income, while income over $106,800 is not subject to the Social Security tax. The only fair way to improve the funding for Social Security is to lift this cap.

Richard G. Shelp Jr., Bridgehampton