How Social Security Lifts Families Financially Across Generations

The program reflects core American values, experts say

Deirdre Shesgreen,

AARP

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En español

Published August 05, 2025

When Phyllis Bermudez goes grocery shopping, she puts a few of the pricier items, like eggs and bacon, at the back of her cart. Then she waits for the cashier to start tallying things up before determining if she has to put anything back.

At 77, the Queens, New York, resident lives frugally but comfortably on her monthly Social Security benefit, a bit of retirement savings and a small pension. That nest egg did not come easily.

“I had to work very hard for it,” says Bermudez, whose grandfather, a native of Grenada, immigrated to the U.S. after working on the Panama Canal. She spent 45 years as an assistant to several doctors in New York hospitals, transcribing medical reports and doctors’ notes, among other tasks.

“Working in this country, especially as a Black woman, you had to fight your way to get certain positions,” she says. She took evening courses in writing and medical terminology to advance her career, balancing her job with her duties as a single mother.

Now, when her monthly payment arrives, it’s a reminder of how she was able to overcome those obstacles, just like her parents and grandparents before her, and build a good life for herself and her daughter.

a passport showing two images and names, beatrice john and ambrose john

A passport for Phyllis Bermudez's grandfather, Ambrose John, includes the name and photo of his wife, Beatrice.

Courtesy Phyllis Bermudez

Ambrose John's certificate of naturalization, which mentions Bermudez's mother Amelia.

Courtesy Phyllis Bermudez

This Aug. 14 will mark the 90th anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of the Social Security Act, establishing a program that has helped generations of Americans like Phyllis Bermudez live with dignity in retirement.

“It’s a program with decades of success of lifting people out of poverty, particularly older adults,” says Kate Lang, director of federal income security at Justice in Aging, a nonprofit that fights poverty among older adults. “It’s got a great track record.”

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‘If we work hard, we should get something in return’

Indeed, Social Security keeps more Americans out of poverty than any other program in the United States, according to research by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research group in Washington, D.C. Without it, 22 million more adults and children would be living below the poverty line, the center said in a January 2025 report.

Social Security is particularly vital for older women and people of color, who often work low-wage jobs that don’t offer access to 401(k)s or other retirement savings options. “All of the money ... coming into their households needed to be spent on their immediate needs for food and shelter and health care,” Lang says, making it nearly impossible to save.

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“Because of Social Security, only about 20 percent of Black older adults are living in poverty,” Lang says. That’s still too high, she adds, but it would be nearly 50 percent without Social Security.

Eric Kingson, a professor emeritus of social work at Syracuse University who has written extensively about the program, says Social Security also reflects a foundational American principle.

“This is an institution that gives meaning to ... our core values, like we’re all supposed to work hard, and if we work hard, we should get something in return,” he says.

That resonates with Phyllis Bermudez. Her grandmother was a dressmaker in Panama, where she and Bermudez’s grandfather met and got married. They immigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s, relying in part on the savings her grandfather had earned while working as an engineer and carpenter on the canal.

Her grandparents found an apartment in Harlem, where Bermudez’s mother and aunt grew up. Other relatives came, too, and they eventually pooled their savings to buy a three-family house in the Corona neighborhood of Queens.

“Everybody pitched in,” she says. “This is how we started our life in this country.”

That ethos carried through to her upbringing as well. Her mother, Amelia Frederick, worked as a nurse; her father, Leroy Frederick, spent his career with the U.S. Postal Service. She and her two brothers shared everything.

Amelia and Leroy in their house, which Amelia was able to stay in thanks to Social Security.

Courtesy Phyllis Bermudez

Bermudez’s father died before he was able to claim Social Security, but the program provided her mother with financial security and allowed her to stay in her own home after she retired, at age 62. She received her first payment in the early 1980s, and the checks kept coming until she died, at age 97.

“When my mother first received her Social Security check, she was able to buy food and also do repairs on her home,” Bermudez says. “My mother always said, if it wasn’t for President Roosevelt, they would not have the Social Security.”

The next generation

Now the program is helping Bermudez stay in her Queens apartment, which she shares with her daughter, Daria Bermudez. Phyllis Bermudez uses her Social Security payment to cover basics such as groceries and prescriptions, and it allows her to occasionally travel.

“I’m hoping and I’m praying that my daughter will have the same,” she says of the financial safety net. But she and Daria are concerned about the program’s future.

The latest annual report from the Social Security Board of Trustees, released in June, projects that under current law, the combined trust funds used to pay retirees, their survivors and workers with disabilities will run short of money by 2034. If that happens, beneficiaries will face an estimated 19 percent cut in their monthly payments, unless Congress passes legislation to address the shortfall.

“I’m very worried,” Phyllis Bermudez says. Without her Social Security, her savings would likely run out quickly.

Phyllis (right) with her daughter Daria in the 1990s.

Courtesy Phyllis Bermudez

At 46, Daria Bermudez has already been paying into Social Security for more than 30 years. She got her first job at age 14 as a candy striper at Flushing Hospital Medical Center in Queens. Now she helps high school graduates prepare for college through an Upward Bound program at Fordham University.

Daria tries to put a small amount of money into a retirement account every month but says her financial future feels shaky.

“My generation and the ones after me, we don’t hold jobs for 15, 20, 30, 40 years,” she says, adding that many employers don’t offer 401(k) plans, let alone pensions.

“That economic uncertainty is a very frightening place to be,” she continues. “So, we need that Social Security ... because basically the jobs of now are not guaranteed to give us that savings.” If she or her mother loses what they’ve put into the system, it would be “catastrophic.”

Phyllis Bermudez says that if Congress doesn’t address the shortfall, “I would go to Washington, D.C., and I would protest, alongside others in my generation. ... I’m not going to let anybody stop me from getting what belongs to me.”

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Deirdre Shesgreen is an AARP writer and editor covering Social Security. She previously worked as a state news editor for the AARP Bulletin and as a reporter and editor at USA Today, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other publications.