by For about 1 in 4, Social Security provides at least 90 percent of their income. How many retired workers are getting less than ,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 as 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
Topics:
Charles Hugh Smith considers the following as important: 5) Global Macro, 5.) Charles Hugh Smith, Featured, newsletter
This could be interesting, too:
Frank Shostak writes Assumptions in Economics and in the Real World
Conor Sanderson writes The Betrayal of Free Speech: Elon Musk Buckles to Government Censorship, Again
Nachrichten Ticker - www.finanzen.ch writes Bitcoin erstmals über 80.000 US-Dollar
Nachrichten Ticker - www.finanzen.ch writes Kraken kündigt eigene Blockchain ‘Ink’ an – Neue Ära für den Krypto-Markt?
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 as a
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 |
Social Security, 1960 - 2020 - Click to enlarge |
It turns out that 23.4% of all retired workers receive less than $1,000 a month in Social Security (SSA) benefits. Note that $148.50 is deducted monthly from the SSA benefit for Medicare Part B for retirees age 65 and older, so the net cash received is $148.50 less than the full benefit for everyone in Medicare (age 65 and older).
Roughly half of all retired workers receive $1,500 or less per month. 76% of all retired workers receive less than $2,000 a month. 91% of all retired workers receive less than $2,500 a month. 98% of all retired workers receive less than $3,000 a month. 4,201 beneficiaries receive $4,000 or more per month.
For roughly half of the elderly, Social Security provides 50 percent of their income, and for about 1 in 4, it provides at least 90 percent of their income. The top 10% of senior households enjoy average incomes of about $230,000. Social Security Benefits Are Modest (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)
In summary, few are living large on Social Security benefits. The chart below depicts the accelerating costs of SSA retirement and disability benefits. As a guideline, I extended the SSA expenditures in 1980, 1990 and 2000 if the expenditures had tracked inflation, as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Clearly, the programs’ costs are rising faster than inflation as the number of retirees and disabled expands.
You can find further data on these Social Security Administration pages:
Retired worker beneficiaries in current payment status at the end of
December 2020
Social Security Administration Monthly Statistical Snapshot, April 2021
You Might Also Like
Weekly SNB Sight Deposits and Speculative Positions: Inflation is there, CHF must Rise
2021-06-07
Update June 04 2021: SNB intervening. Sight Deposits have risen by +0.3 bn CHF, this means that the SNB is intervening and buying Euros and Dollars.
Sickcare is the Knife in the Heart of Employment–and the Economy
2021-05-18
We need to change the incentives of the
entire system, not just healthcare, but if we don’t start with healthcare, that financial
cancer will drag us into national insolvency all by itself.
American Healthcare is a growth industry in the same way cancer is a growth industry:
both keep growing until they kill the host, which in the case of healthcare is the U.S. economy.
While a great many individuals in the system care about improving the health of their patients,
the healthcare system itself only cares about one thing: maximizing profits by any means
available, including sending many patients to an early grave via medications which corporations
declared "safe" and rigged the political-regulatory-research systems to comply.
I call this maximizing profits by any means available
The “Helicopter Parent” Fed and the Fatal Crash of Risk
2021-04-14
All the risks generated by gambling with trillions of borrowed and leveraged dollars didn’t actually vanish; they were transferred by the Fed to the entire system. The Federal Reserve is the nation’s Helicopter Parent, saving everyone from the
consequences of their actions.
Our “Wealth”: Cloud Castles in the Sky
2021-04-04
Buyers know there will always be a greater fool willing to pay more for an over-valued asset because the Fed has promised us it will always be the greater fool. I realize nobody wants to hear that most of their "wealth" is nothing more than wispy Cloud Castles in the Sky that will dissipate in the faintest zephyr, but there it is: that which was conjured out of thin air will return to thin air.
Stimulus Addiction Disorder: The Debt-Disposable Earnings Pyramid
2021-03-16
One glance at this chart explains why the status quo is locked on “run to fail” and will implode in a spectacular collapse of the unsustainable debt super-nova.. For those who suspect the status quo is unsustainable but aren’t quite sure why, I’ve prepared a simple chart that explains the financial precariousness many sense.
Oil and Debt: Why Our Financial System Is Unsustainable
2021-02-25
How much energy, water and food will the "money" created out of thin air in the future buy? Finance is often cloaked in arcane terminology and math, but the one dynamic that governs the future is actually very simple.
The Dangerously Diminishing Returns on Monetary and Fiscal Stimulus
2021-01-21
Allow me to translate the risible claims of Jay Powell and Janet Yellen that their stimulus policies haven’t boosted wealth inequality to the moon: “Let them eat cake.”
The Tyranny Nobody Talks About
2021-01-08
All the tricks to hide our unaffordable cost structure have reached marginal returns.
Reality is about to intrude.
There is much talk of tyranny in the political realm, but little is said about the tyrannies
in the economic realm, a primary one being the tyranny of high costs: high costs
crush the economy from within and enslave those attempting to start enterprises or keep their
businesses afloat.
Traditionally, costs are broken down into fixed costs such as rent and fees which don’t change
regardless of whether business is good or bad, and operating costs such as payrolls, fuel,
etc. which rise and fall with revenues.
To some degree, this division no longer matters, because the entire cost structure of our
economy is tyrannically high: if rent, insurance, taxes and general overhead
Tags: Featured,newsletter