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IF YOU’RE A NUMBERS geek who’s also interested in Social Security, the recently released OASDI Beneficiaries by State and County 2020 report is for you. Put out by the Social Security Administration (SSA), the report provides a wealth of interesting statistics.
Here are some basic numbers for context. As of December 2020, the U.S. population was 329,484,123. The population age 65 or older was 55,659,365, or 16.9% of the total. The SSA provides benefits to retirees, their survivors and disabled citizens. In certain situations, children may also receive benefits. Roughly one in five of us is receiving some form of Social Security benefit—65 million in all. About 49 million receive Social Security retirement benefits, six million receive survivor benefits and 9.5 million receive disability benefits.
Have you ever wondered which state has the largest population receiving benefits, by percentage of population? That would be West Virginia at 26.4%. The state with the lowest portion of the population receiving benefits is Alaska at 14.6%.
Considering a tropical retirement? You can join 22,576 of your countrymen who are receiving their retirement benefits while enjoying life in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Among U.S. territories, Puerto Rico has the largest number of recipients at a little over 800,000.
I took a close look at my home state of Pennsylvania. Here’s what I found:
Whenever I’m concerned about Social Security’s future, all I need do is think about how many citizens rely on the program. Chances are either we, or someone close to us, are receiving benefits. This segment of the population also happens to turn out in large numbers at election time.
According to the 2020 presidential election voting tables from the U.S. Census Bureau, voter turnout was highest among those ages 65 to 74. This gives me hope that Congress will eventually make changes to shore up Social Security—because politicians won’t want to risk the wrath of their constituents who are most likely to vote.
That’s the conventional wisdom: “Congress will eventually make changes to shore up Social Security—because politicians won’t want to risk the wrath of their constituents.”
My question is when does eventually come??
Congress will make the tough decisions when it’s forced to — and not a moment sooner!
It would be interesting to see who is on the paying-in end – the amount of FICA collected by state. I suspect most of it comes from just a few states with lots of high-salaried workers.
This was harder to find than I would have thought. The data shows Jonathan is correct, the Northeast provides the most. I was surprised to see the that Wash DC provides the most, per capita. Here is the data on per capita taxes.
https://www.seniorliving.org/research/social-security-by-state/
It would indeed be interesting — and I imagine you’re right. I’ve seen stats for federal income taxes showing that the northeast pays in far more to the federal government than those states get back — and yet those are the states where voters are most likely to favor bigger government.