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Social Security Fast Facts and Figures

If you are doing any kind of research into Social Security issues, the Social Security Administration website has a ton of information for you. SSA's Office of Research, Statistics and Policy Analysis produces a plethora of publications covering almost every conceivable Social Security-related topic. Admittedly, some of them are only for serious scholars or historians studying very esoteric subjects. Here is a sample title: "Old Age Insurance for Agricultural Workers in Western Europe." And here is a real page turner: "Income of Urban Families and Individuals in Single Family Households."

But they also produce some more mainstream publications that I, and many other researchers, use all the time. One that is updated annually is called the "Annual Statistical Supplement." There you will find every bit of statistical data you would ever want to know about the Social Security program. Scroll to the bottom of the SSA's website homepage (ssa.gov) and you'll find all this stuff under the "Research and Policy" link.

One little booklet that I find very helpful and informative is called "Fast Facts and Figures About Social Security." It is filled with little snippets of information that are fascinating. I will use the rest of this column to share just a few of these fast facts. (By the way: the latest "Fast Facts and Figures" is the 2025 edition, and most of its numbers are current through 2024.)

Social Security Beneficiaries

There were 68,456,000 people getting Social Security benefits in December 2024. Of that total, 76%, or about 52 million people, were getting retirement benefits. Another 7.2 million, or 11%, were getting disability benefits. About 8% of the total, or 5.7 million people, were getting survivor benefits. The remaining 5%, or about 3.6 million people, were getting benefits as spouses or children of retired and disabled workers.

How Many People Filed for Social Security Benefits in 2024?

Benefits were awarded to about 6 million persons; of those, 62% were retired workers and 10% were disabled workers. The remaining 28% were survivors or the spouses and children of retired or disabled workers. Awards to retired workers increased considerably over the past four decades, at a higher rate than that by which awards to disabled workers increased. The annual number of awards to retired workers rose from 1.6 million in 1984 to 3.7 million in 2024, while for disabled workers it increased from 362,000 in 1984 to 595,000 in 2024.

How Old Are Social Security Beneficiaries?

More than four-fifths of all Social Security beneficiaries were aged 62 or older, including 28% aged 75-84 and 9% aged 85 or older. About 9% were persons aged 18-61. Most of them were receiving benefits as disabled workers, survivors or dependents. Another 4% were children under age 18.

Men vs. Women

Of all adults receiving monthly Social Security benefits in 2024, 45% were men and 55% were women. Among the men, 87% were receiving retirement benefits, while 75% of the women were getting retirement benefits. Additionally, 12% of men were getting disability benefits while 10% of women were on disability. Another 10% of the women were getting widow's benefits and 5% were getting benefits as a dependent wife (of a husband who is still alive). On the other hand, less than 1% of men were getting benefits as widowers or dependent husbands.

More and More Women Get Their Own Benefits

The proportion of women among retirement beneficiaries quadrupled between 1940 and 2024. The percentage climbed from 12% in 1940 to 51% in 2024. The proportion of women among disability beneficiaries more than doubled between 1957, when disability benefits first became payable, and 2024. The percentage rose steadily from 19% in 1957 to 35% in 1990 and 50% in 2024.

Women Who Get Benefits on Two Accounts

The Social Security Administration calls women who get benefits on their own account and from their husband's record "dually entitled." The proportion of women aged 62 or older who are receiving benefits as dependents (that is, on the basis of their spouses' earnings records only) declined from 57% in 1960 to 15% in 2024. At the same time, the proportion of women with dual entitlement (that is, paid on the basis of both their own earnings records and those of their spouses) increased from 5% in 1960 to 23% in 2024.

How Social Security Is Financed

Social Security is largely a pay-as-you-go program. Most of the payroll taxes collected from today's workers are used to pay benefits to today's recipients. In 2024, the Social Security Trust Funds collected $1.42 trillion in revenues. Of that amount, 91.2% was from payroll tax contributions and reimbursements from the General Fund of the Treasury, and 3.9% was from income taxes on Social Security benefits. Interest earned on the government bonds held by the trust funds provided the remaining 4.9% of income. And 99.1% of the program's revenues were used to pay monthly Social Security benefits, while just 0.5% of revenues went towards administrative expenses and the remaining 0.4% involved transfers to the Railroad Retirement Board. (There is a fiduciary relationship between the SSA and the RRB too messy to explain here.)

As I said, this was just a snippet of the information available in the booklet "Fast Facts and Figures." And I apologize because this column just contained boring words. The actual booklet is full of colorful charts and graphs to back up all the statistics. To find the booklet, just do a Google search for "Social Security Fast Facts and Figures." It leads you to the aforementioned "Research and Policy" portion of the SSA website where you can download the entire publication.

If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has two books with all the answers. One is called "Social Security -- Simple and Smart: 10 Easy-to-Understand Fact Sheets That Will Answer All Your Questions About Social Security." The other is "Social Security: 100 Myths and 100 Facts." You can find the books at Amazon.com or other book outlets. Or you can send him an email at thomas.margenau@comcast.net. To find out more about Tom Margenau and to read past columns and see features from other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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