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Is Social Security just for retired workers?


Far from it. While retirees account for more than 73 percent of the people receiving Social Security benefits, the Social Security Administration (SSA) also makes payments to:

Here are a few more key Social Security stats as of October 2022:

  • Some 65.8 million people are drawing retirement, disability, family or survivor benefits totaling $102.2 billion a month.
  • More than 3.8 million of them are the children of retired, disabled or deceased workers. The SSA pays out nearly $3 billion a month in child benefits. 
  • Nearly 7.6 million people receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a program run by Social Security that provides cash assistance to older, blind and disabled people with very low incomes. More than 2.3 million people age 65 and over receive SSI. 
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