Titanic Facts: The Ship. White Star Line was the company that built the Titanic, and was owned by J.P. Morgan, an American tycoon. The cost to build the RMS Titanic was $7.5 million. RMS stands for Royal Mail Steamer. It took 3,000 men two years to build the Titanic.
Workers and employers pay for Social Security. Workers pay 6.2 percent of their earnings up to a cap, which is $118,500 a year in 2015. (The cap on taxable earnings usually rises each year with average wages.) Employers pay a matching amount for a combined contribution of 12.4 percent of earnings.
In 2013 the average worker made $44,888 a year, according to the Social Security Administration. This worker and his or her employer will each pay $2,783 this year. Approximately 6 percent of all workers will earn more than the $118,500 tax cap. Earnings above the cap now account for 17 percent of the aggregate pay of all workers who pay into Social Security. An additional tax on workers' earnings pays for Medicare hospital insurance. This is a 1.45 percent levy, paid by workers and employers each on all wages, for a total tax of 2.9 percent.