Fact Check: Social Security payments weren't renamed 'Federal Benefit Payments'

Claim:

Social Security checks have officially been renamed “Federal Benefit Payments.”

Rating:

For several years, many people online have claimed that U.S. Social Security payments were being renamed “Federal Benefit Payments.” In mid- and late 2025, the rumor spread in various lengthy Facebook posts describing the change as a “Ponzi scheme” being carried out by the federal government.

One popular variant claimed the government was taking money from people’s earned income and saying it would be used as a “benefit” payment when in fact the people were entitled to that money. Here is an excerpt:

The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a “Federal Benefit Payment.” This isn’t a benefit. It is our money paid out of our earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that’s close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both you and your employers contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you’d have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved!This is your personal investment. Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you’d receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.That’s almost three times more than today’s average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration. (Google it – it’s a fact).And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you’re 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger “Ponzi scheme” than Bernie Madoff ever did. They took our money and used it elsewhere. They forgot (oh yes, they knew) that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn’t have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn’t pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently they’ve told us that the money won’t support us for very much longer.But is it our fault they misused our investments? And now, to add insult to injury, they’re calling it a “benefit”, as if we never worked to earn every penny of it.

https://www.facebook.com/thomas.doucette.71/posts/pfbid0D2BbBR9FM8wNfzhv4jzQfUN4PAFm2UKKnotb7qLtsuP3kvZnQMxaWRHyHG1CkRjol

As Snopes has reported previously, Social Security payments have often been referred to as “federal benefit payments,” so this is not a new development. The Social Security Administration has long classified its disbursements in such a manner, and there is no evidence that this is a recently implemented or official name change. As such, we rate this claim as false.

We have reached out to the SSA’s press office for comment and will update this post if we get more information.

When we first encountered the claim in 2012, we reported that the term “benefits” always applied to Social Security retirement payments since the Social Security program was enacted in the 1930s. The terminology is not unique to Social Security, as the phrase “federal benefit payments” applies to a broad class of payments made to (or on behalf of) individuals under federal government programs — Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicare and farm subsidies, to name a few, are also considered “federal benefit payments.” The fact that workers themselves contributed much of the money that goes into the Social Security retirement fund doesn’t affect its classification as a benefit.

The SSA uses the term “benefits” to describe retirement, disability, survivor, family and Supplemental Security Income payments.

We looked through the SSA’s news releases to determine whether a formalized change of language had occurred and found no announcements stating this.

The term “benefits” was used in SSA documentation over the years, including this 2022 analysis of the Supplemental Security Income program and a 2025 fact sheet describing how 69 million Americans received a Social Security benefit per month.

The Facebook posts making the claim contain calculations based on inaccurate information such as the claim Social Security contributions total “15% of our income before taxes.” Social Security contributions today are 12.4% “on up to $176,100 of your net earnings and a 2.9% Medicare tax on your entire net earnings.” And of that 12.4% tax, 6.2% is paid by the employer, while the other 6.2% is paid by the employee. Such contributions have varied over the years.

The posts also misrepresent the nature and purpose of Social Security. It is not an investment scheme or savings plan. As we have noted in our previous reporting, it is an Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program intended to ensure that Americans are guaranteed a minimum monthly payment in their nonworking years. As with all insurance programs, some people eventually receive less than they paid in, and others receive more.

We’ve analyzed various rumors about SSA’s federal payment program, including claims about alleged fraud and different lawmakers’ purported plans to change it.

Sources:

1935 Social Security Act. Social Security Administration, 1935, https://www.ssa.gov/history/35actinx.html. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025.

“Benefits.” Social Security Administration, https://www.ssa.gov/benefits. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025.

Deng, Rae. “10 Claims We’ve Analyzed about Social Security.” Snopes, 8 Mar. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//collections/social-security-fact-checks/. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025.

“Fact Sheet.” Social Security Administration, 2025, https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/basicfact-alt.pdf. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025.

“How Is Social Security Financed?” Social Security Administration, https://www.ssa.gov/news/en/press/how-is-social-security-financed.html. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025.

Mikkelson, David. “FACT CHECK: Social Security as ‘Federal Benefit Payments.'” Snopes, 23 Jul. 2012, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/federal-benefit-payments/. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025.

Putterman, Samantha. “Social Security Payments Have Not Been Recently Reclassified.” Politifact, Feb. 28, 2020. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/feb/28/facebook-posts/social-security-payments-have-always-been-called-b/. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025.

“Supplemental Security Income Program.” Social Security Administration, 2022, https://www.ssa.gov/budget/assets/materials/2022/2022SSI.pdf. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025.