Number of Social Security Beneficiaries

The graph below shows the number of people receiving Social Security benefits at the end of calendar quarters, beginning with data for March 1970.

Counting dual-entitled beneficiaries
If a beneficiary is entitled to both a primary benefit (as a retired or disabled worker) and another benefit (say a spousal benefit) payable from the same trust fund, then he or she is counted only once in our statistics as a primary beneficiary.