When a teenager gets her first pay stub, the first thing she notices is dozens if not hundreds of dollars of tax withholding. Medicare tax alone consumes 1.45% of that first paycheck. But what our hypothetical youngster doesn’t see is the other 1.45% paid by her employer — an amount that quietly limits this employee’s total pay.

Now imagine taking that combined 2.9% of the paycheck lost, and multiplying it by 10. And then more. Picture a whopping 32% payroll tax to pay for Medicare on top of 12.4% taken for Social Security. Before you even pay a dime in federal or state income taxes, payroll taxes would have eaten up nearly half your check.