Eighty years ago today, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. To celebrate, we’ve updated our backgrounder on this successful program, which has a long history of popular and presidential support. Here are ten numbers that highlight Social Security’s broad reach and profound impact:
- Number of Americans receiving Social Security: 60 million
- Number of recipients older than Social Security itself: 11 million
- Average Social Security monthly retirement benefit: $1,335 (about $16,000 a year)
- Share of population aged 60-89 who receive or will receive Social Security benefits: 97 percent
- Share of Social Security beneficiaries aged 85 and older who are women: 66 percent
- Number of elderly lifted out of poverty by Social Security: 14.7 million
- Number of children lifted out of poverty by Social Security: 1.2 million
- Share of elderly who receive most of their income through Social Security: 65 percent
- Share of elderly who receive all or nearly all of their income through Social Security: 36 percent
- Social Security administrative costs as a share of benefits: 0.7 percent