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Beneficiary Data
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Number of Social Security Beneficiaries

Beneficiary data

Beneficiaries by

Trust Fund data

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

click on graph for table showing number of beneficiaries

Beneficiaries receiving benefits
at the end of June 2008
All beneficiaries50,417,219
Retired workers and dependents34,882,511
Survivors6,470,171
Disabled workers and dependents9,064,537
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.
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Last reviewed or modified Monday May 5, 2008
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