The federal government spent $1.5 trillion on Social Security in fiscal year 2024. This accounted for 22.4% of the total federal budget.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) provides financial support for people of retirement age, people with disabilities, and survivors of family losses including spouses and children.
In 2024 Social Security spending included:
- $1.3 trillion (86%) went to retirement benefits
- $155 billion (11%) went to disability benefits
- $54 billion (4%) covered other benefits
How many people receive Social Security benefits?
The SSA projects that nearly 69 million people will receive benefits monthly in 2025.
In December 2024, nearly 90% of people ages 65 and older were enrolled in the program. That amounted to 68.5 million people, including:
- 51.8 million retired workers and their 2.6 million spouses and dependents
- 7.2 million disabled workers and their 1.1 million spouses and dependents
- 5.8 million survivors
How much money do Social Security beneficiaries receive?
The SSA distributed $104.7 billion to retirees and dependents in December 2024, for an average monthly benefit of $1,975. It distributed another $11.9 billion to disability recipients and their dependents, for an average of $1,581. Survivors enrolled in the program were granted $8.9 billion, an average of $1,546. Beneficiaries pay taxes on Social Security income.
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How is Social Security funded?
The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance trust funds, which were worth a combined $2.7 trillion at the end of 2024, fund Social Security.
US workers pay into the trust funds through payroll taxes and employers match these contributions. Self-employed people are taxed at twice the rate — essentially paying as the employer and as the employee. The SSA estimates that workers contributed $1.3 trillion to the trust funds in 2024. The funds also generated $55 billion from income taxes on benefits and $69 billion on interest.
Is Social Security sustainable?
The trust funds that support Social Security ran a deficit yearly from 2021 to 2024. It ran on a surplus in every year from 1982 to 2020.
In 2024, the trust funds took in $1.42 trillion and spent $1.48 trillion, depleting the funds by a record $67 billion. Since peaking in 2020, the overall value of the trust funds has decreased by $187 billion, or 6.4%.
The SSA projects that the trust funds supporting Social Security could be depleted by 2034, barring any intervention from Congress.
What’s depleting the Social Security funds?
The nation’s population is aging, posing a challenge for the Social Security system, which is designed for — among other purposes — its workers to support its retirees. The model relies on some level of balance between workers paying into the trust funds and beneficiaries receiving those funds.
In recent years, though, that balance has been impacted by three factors in particular:
- More people reaching retirement age
- Relatively fewer entering the workforce
- People living longer into retirement
One way the Census Bureau measures this type of balance is a broad dependency ratio, which the bureau defines as the number of “dependent-age” people (those younger than 15 or older than 65) for every 100 “working-age” people (15 to 64). This ratio rose 13% from 2007 to 2023 despite the younger-than-15 cohort decreasing during that time.
Why is the population getting older?
The population is aging largely as a result of shifting birth and death rates over time. The national birth rate has been declining since 1990. Natural births are not the only way people enter the workforce — for instance, nearly 20% of all workers immigrated to the US as of 2024— but the lowering birth rate has contributed to a shifting age distribution in the overall population.
Variable birth rates contribute to the size of our population’s age cohorts shifting over time, too. In other words, an elevated birth rate during a particular period usually means a higher share of 10-year-olds 10 years from that period, 20-year-olds in 20 years, and so on.
Take baby boomers, for instance, the generation born from 1946 to 1964, a time of particularly high birth rates. In the animation below, you can see how the composition of the population has shifted as baby boomers have aged.
New births peaked in 1957 at 4.3 million — people born that year turned 65 in 2022. During that time, the share of the population made up by 65+-year-olds nearly doubled, from 9.0% to 17.2%.
All told, the SSA expects the number of Americans 65 and older to continue to grow by 26% over 12 more years, from about 61 million in 2023 to about 77 million in 2035.
This means more people aging into Social Security eligibility, and proportionally fewer in the age groups most likely to pay into the funds.
Shown as a share of the total population, you can see the wave of the baby boom below. The age cohorts swell as the generation ages into them.
The impact of shifting birth rates is compounded by the fact that the death rate has also been decreasing throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, and until COVID-19, extending life expectancy.
From 1959 to 1961, 65-year-olds were expected to live another 14 years, to the age of 79. In 2022, they were expected to live another 19 years, to the age of 84.
Larger cohorts of Americans living longer into old age puts added pressure on the balance of a Social Security system that has gone from perennial surpluses to recent deficits. Since Social Security is mandatory spending, any changes to the program’s budget would require congressional action.
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