How many people get Social Security benefits in the U.S.? The number has nearly doubled since 1980
In the U.S. in 2026, 71.6 million people claim Social Security benefits, according to the latest statistics published by the Social Security Administration (SSA).
A scheme that chiefly pays benefits to retired and disabled workers, and to relatives of deceased workers, Social Security now has almost exactly twice as many claimants as it did in 1980. At that point, 35.5 million beneficiaries were signed up to the program, per the SSA.
Why are there so many more beneficiaries today?
A major factor behind this two-fold rise seems to be the demographic change witnessed in the U.S. over the past 46 years.
Per U.S. Census figures, the country’s population has risen from 226.5 million to 342.9 million – a 66% increase that has significantly upped the quantity of potential claimants. And, importantly, the average age of the population has also gone up. In 1980, 11.3% of Americans were 65 or over; in 2026, that percentage now stands at 18.9%.
The impact of this sizeable growth in the U.S.’s population of senior citizens is visible in the year-by-year claimant figures published by the SSA. They show the major role that retired workers appear to have played in the rise in total Social Security beneficiaries.
In 1980, there were 23.2 million recipients of retirement pay in the U.S. Over the past four and a half decades, that figure his rocketed by well over 30 million, to 57.9 million.
Meanwhile, the amount of disability-benefit recipients has risen by a comparatively modest 3.3 million since 1980. What’s more, beneficiaries of survivor pay have actually fallen in number nationwide, from 7.6 million to 5.7 million.
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Social Security’s 2026 beneficiary numbers: which state has most?
Per the most recent state-by-state breakdown published by the SSA, California is home to more Social Security recipients than anywhere else in the U.S.
As of December 2025, the Social Security program had 6.814 million Californian beneficiaries.
According to the SSA’s figures, which the agency released in August, the Golden State was followed by Florida on 5.294 million; Texas on 4.997 million; New York on 3.925 million; and Pennsylvania on 3.036 million.
With nearly 40 million inhabitants, California is by a distance the U.S.’s largest state by population, so it is little surprise that it has the most Social Security beneficiaries. Indeed, each of the states listed above is among the five most populous in the country.
Throughout the SSA’s ranking, moreover, states’ populations appear to correlate, either exactly or approximately, with their position. In the majority of cases, a state’s total number of Social Security beneficiaries equates to around one fifth of its population.
Social Security beneficiaries – numbers by state or district:
- California: 6.814 million (17.3% of state’s population)
- Florida: 5.294 million (22.6%)
- Texas: 4.997 million (15.8%)
- New York: 3.925 million (19.6%)
- Pennsylvania: 3.036 million (23.2%)
- Ohio: 2.612 million (21.9%)
- Illinois: 2.454 million (19.3%)
- North Carolina: 2.386 million (21.3%)
- Michigan: 2.381 million (23.5%)
- Georgia: 2.082 million (18.4%)
- New Jersey: 1.78 million (18.6%)
- Virginia: 1.736 million (19.5%)
- Tennessee: 1.593 million (21.8%)
- Arizona: 1.576 million (20.7%)
- Washington: 1.526 million (19.1%)
- Indiana: 1.474 million (21.1%)
- Minnesota: 1.187 million (20.4%)
- Missouri: 1.416 million (22.6%)
- Massachusetts: 1.409 million (19.7%)
- Wisconsin: 1.399 million (23.4%)
- South Carolina: 1.334 million (23.9%)
- Alabama: 1.207 million (23.3%)
- Maryland: 1.133 million (18.1%)
- Kentucky: 1.060 million (23.0%)
- Colorado: 1.035 million (17.2%)
- Louisiana: 992,000 (21.5%)
- Oregon: 964,000 (22.6%)
- Oklahoma: 867,000 (21.1%)
- Connecticut: 765,000 (20.8%)
- Arkansas: 737,000 (23.7%)
- Iowa: 718,000 (22.2%)
- Mississippi: 710,000 (24.0%)
- Nevada: 629,000 (19.2%)
- Kansas: 613,000 (20.6%)
- Utah: 488,000 (13.8%)
- New Mexico: 486,000 (22.9%)
- West Virginia: 482,000 (27.3%)
- Idaho: 421,000 (20.7%)
- Nebraska: 388,000 (19.3%)
- Maine: 388,000 (27.4%)
- New Hampshire: 354,000 (25.0%)
- Hawaii: 311,000 (21.7%)
- Montana: 271,000 (23.7%)
- Delaware: 257,000 (24.2%)
- Rhode Island: 249,000 (22.3%)
- South Dakota: 206,000 (22.0%)
- Vermont: 168,000 (26.1%)
- North Dakota: 154,000 (19.2%)
- Wyoming: 133,000 (22.5%)
- Alaska: 123,000 (16.7%)
- District of Columbia: 88,000 (12.7%)
*Total Social Security beneficiaries as of Dec. 2025: 70.45 million. Ranking does not include beneficiaries based in overseas U.S. territories or foreign countries
How much are monthly Social Security benefits?
According to the latest Social Security factsheet released by the SSA, average monthly benefits are:
- Retirement: $2,034.54
- Disability: $1,499.41
- Survivor: $1,636.31
Beneficiaries set for COLA rise
Earlier this month, the SSA is handed its tens of millions of recipients their largest Social Security benefits increase in four years, when the agency confirmed its annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).
An measure that seeks to protect recipients’ spending power, the latest COLA is to raise monthly payments by 3.6% in 2027. The SSA has not enacted a COLA of this size since 2023, when surging post-pandemic inflation led the body to increase benefits by 8.7%.
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