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Almost four years ago I wrote an article about the 2020 OASDI Beneficiaries by State and County report. The report is put out by the Social Security Administration (SSA), and provides a wealth of interesting statistics. Here is the link to the 2024 report where you can investigate detailed national and local data.
Here are some basic numbers for context. As of December 2020, the U.S. population was 329,484,123. Four year later it had grown 3.5%, to 341,145,670. About 20% of the population receives some form of benefit. The population age 65 or older grew by 9.9%, to almost 18% of the population. The number of people receiving retirement benefits grew by a slightly less amount of 7.1%. The table below provides some data indicating the change over the last four years. It’s not surprising that our population is trending older.
Item 2020 2024 Increase
US Population 329,484,123 341,145,670 3.5%
Population 65 or older 55,659,365 61,179,918 9.9%
Receiving Benefits 64,850,867 68,455,973 5.6%
Retirement Benefits 48,329,595 51,772,651 7.1%
Survivor Benefits 5,874,648 5,785,602 -1.5%
Disability Benefits 8,151,016 7,231,147 -11.3%
West Virginia still has the largest population receiving benefits at 27.1% of the population. After that come Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Utah claimed the prize this time as the state with the lowest portion of the population receiving benefits, at 13.5%. The report provides county by county data for the 50 states, US territories, and US citizens living abroad. My favorites statistic is there are 360 people receiving benefits whose whereabouts are unknown.
Four years ago, I concluded the article by expressing hope that Congress would eventually make changes to shore up Social Security—because politicians wouldn’t want to risk the wrath of their constituents who are most likely (seniors) to vote. Almost four years later I still have hope, but it’s waning.
Thank you Rick, I’ve put this site in the bookmarks. I appreciate your attention to the data.
My HOPE, is waning a lot. I think we are safe as retired people, but not totally. As changes are continually put off by our elected officials it sure looks like in a few years, our benefits will be reduced to keep SS working. I believe nothing the current Congress is saying about SS, it is all gobbledygook, and even believe less from the current administration.
The likelihood of Congress doing anything productive in this regard is lower than me becoming the next Pope.
I went on SS early for a couple of reasons, but mainly because of my wife’s age (she’s older and I’m the primary earner), and because Opensocialsecurity.com’s calculator kept telling me there was little benefit to waiting. Given how things are going in our country, fiscally and otherwise, I’m glad I’m getting these funds early which I have been able to put to work. It would make me sick to wait for full retirement age or later only to see my benefit reduced.
SS has been discussed a lot very intelligently in this forum. Unfortunately, there are forces outside this forum very intent of destroying it. For years there have been misinformation campaigns targeting SS and, frankly, I don’t know how many of our fellow citizens can understand the math of this.
Thanks, Rick. I wonder if there is a constituency of voters who support Social Security reform?
Another key stat is the number of workers to number of collecting beneficiaries. It’s been going down.
I wonder if an assessment has been made of the now lost contributions made to Social Security by those deported immigrants.
What do you mean lost? All taxes paid into the trust are part of one big pool. The taxes paid by those who cannot collect benefits are our gain and one part of the reason benefits have not already been reduced.
But yes, future revenue has been reduced by declining undocumented you undocumented immigrants. Only one effect of deporting an important element of our workforce. (5%).
Wage stagnation is part of the equation.
Not sure about that as slower wage growth means both lower taxes paid and lower future benefit liability.
I wonder if others are thinking about or actually building a tips ladder to start when the SS trust fund is projected to be depleted in an amount of their projected SS haircut or projected need based future personal cash flows?
This is just one reason why we’re keeping our portfolio income draw rate very low in the first 10 years of retirement. The most likely scenario seems to be that a future Congress will finally act when forced (2032? 2034?). At that point all stake holders could be affected.
I no longer trust TIPS and I bonds because there is assault on data in DC. Do we really believe that if inflation increases, the current government would acknowledge this?
Nope. That’s why those reporting numbers this administration doesn’t like get fired
Rather than the complexity of a TIPS ladder, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere my priority for retirement is simplicity and security, so I have a QLAC to begin in 2034.
To borrow a phrase from the writings of Mike Piper, there may not be a single perfect plan but there are often plenty of perfectly adequate plans. It appears both you and Richard Quinn have thought about the what if your Social Security benefit is cut at some future date and both of you have a plan that works for you. I hope my plan of investing in TIPS from Roth conversions over the next seven or eight years is a perfectly adequate plan also. My guess is we will all make appropriate changes as needed.
I hesitate to mention this, but in the unlikely event that happens, my collecting SS and saving/investing strategy years ago will allow me to simply turn off a portion of currently reinvested muni bond interest and make up any reduction in SS benefits.
If the current federal administration doesn’t decimate local economies, this is a good strategy. Back in December I seriously considered moving a tax free bond porffolio to all Treasuries because I’m concerned of an all out assault on cities and blue states. But I didn’t do it. So I truly hope you are correct.
Congress will make changes, all right – about 8 hours before Social Security doesn’t have enough money to send out the monthly payments.
I see no evidence to support this claim
You may be right. But if that happens, it means they manipulated the two funds shifting disability to old age and/or borrowed funds and added general revenue as a very short term solution. Then they have to permanently increase revenue to assure payment of current benefits and then do more to build up the reserves.
the reality in my opinion is that nothing will be done during this administration because SS is inconsistent with its ideology. They are more focused on proving it doesn’t work. The next administration will have even shorter time to deal with it.
Rick, thanks for summarizing what should be eye opening stats. Like many other issues that challenge the country, there are solutions, but they require congress putting the good or the country before their needs to be reelected.
The countdown for the trust fund is well under 10 (years) now, and there seems to be no inertia to bring this issue to the forefront.
Politicians are a bit like turtles. Most vulnerable when they stick their neck out, but unable to move forward if they don’t.
A good reason to impose term limits