by Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds
For about 1 in 4, Social Security provides at least 90 percent of their income.
How many retired workers are getting less than $1,000 per month in Social Security benefits? The question came up and I was curious enough to find the answer, and download the data into an Excel spreadsheet which I saved a PDF that you can review here. Note that this data is for the 46.5 million retired workers only, and does not include benefits paid to survivors, spouses, disabled, etc.
This led to a deep dive into the basic numbers of Social Security beneficiaries and expenses, which are summarized in the chart below. Here are the basics:
Population of the US: 331 million
Social Security beneficiaries: 69.8 million (21% of the population)
Retired workers: 46.5 million (14% of the population)
Survivors and spouses: 8.7 million
Disabled workers and families: 9.4 million
SSI disability: 5.2 million
Projected annual cost 2021: $1.1 trillion