WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is doubling down on a payroll tax cut for workers and small businesses, hoping it will do more to revive the job market than a smaller version has done this year.

Obama wants to extend and expand a payroll tax cut that is scheduled to expire at the end of the year. The current tax cut, which applies only to workers, reduces Social Security taxes from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. Employers still pay the 6.2 percent rate, which is applied to wages up to $106,800.

Appealing to Republicans in Congress who usually favor tax cuts, Obama proposed Thursday to extend the tax cut for a year and make it bigger — reducing the Social Security taxes paid by workers to 3.1 percent. Obama's plan would also reduce Social Security taxes paid by small businesses from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent.

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