A tax break that’s added about $19 a week to many paychecks for the last two years looks like it’s going away in January. While most taxpayers may not notice the difference, it’s a good bet the economy will.

To help offset the income lost during the surge in unemployment following the 2007, Congress and the White House gave American households a small “tax holiday” starting in 2011 and followed it up again this year.

The extra money diverted into consumers’ pockets, though, is money that isn’t going to shore up the Social Security trust fund, which is already creaking under the actuarial weight of a large influx of aging baby boomers. With Congress already staring over the edge of a “fiscal cliff” into a budget deficit abyss, the idea of underfunding Social Security has lost a lot of its appeal.

“Further extension of the payroll tax holiday would undermine confidence in Social Security and put at risk the program’s dedicated funding stream and the hard-earned benefits of millions of Americans and their families,” AARP CEO A. Barry Rand wrote in a letter to Congress and the White House Friday.

These are just a few of the paragraphs from the complete article.

http://economywatch.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/22/14619465-payroll-tax-holidays-end-could-weigh-on-weak-economy?lite&ocid=msnhp