[aianus]

> they may reduce the gross pay the employer is willing to offer, but that doesn't make them "a lie", it just means they have other effects

The effect (minimum wage employees not withstanding) is the same as if the entire tax was employee-share. It is coming out of the worker's pocket. Therefore the 'employer' part is a lie and mostly an ingenious way to hide the tax from the voting base (because unlike other taxes, it does not show up on your pay stub or tax return).

That said it's true that you need to take both these things into account in order to make an apples-to-apples comparison between self-employment income and a given W2 job. But that goes both ways, a $10.33/h job with unpaid time off is the same thing as a $10/h job with 'paid' time off and you have no reason to prefer the latter.