50 Fun Facts About Social Security

In what year did President Franklin D. Roosevelt sign the Social Security Act?

The 37-page act, signed on August 14, bundled old-age insurance with unemployment insurance and aid to dependent children.

What does the acronym OASDI, the formal name of Social Security, stand for?

The original 1935 program was just Old Age Insurance; survivors were added in 1939 and disability in the 1950s.

Who received the very first Social Security payout, a lump sum of 17 cents, in January 1937?

Early one-time payouts went to workers who retired before monthly benefits began in 1940.

How much was the first monthly Social Security check, issued to Ida May Fuller in 1940?

Check number 00-000-001 was dated January 31, 1940; she went on to collect more than $22,000 over 35 years.

Ida May Fuller, the first recurring beneficiary, came from which state?

A Ludlow schoolteacher turned legal secretary, she went to school with Calvin Coolidge at Black River Academy.

How much had Ida May Fuller paid in Social Security taxes before her benefits began?

She worked under the system for just under three years, from spring 1937 to November 1939.

Roughly how much did Ida May Fuller collect in benefits over her retirement?

She lived to 100, and often received the first check after each benefit increase, once with a letter from Lyndon Johnson.

Which Secretary of Labor led the committee that designed Social Security for Roosevelt?

Perkins, the first woman in a presidential cabinet, was asked at a Senate hearing whether the plan was 'a teeny-weeny bit of Socialism'.

The Townsend Plan of 1933 proposed paying every American over 60 how much per month?

Dr Francis Townsend's letter to the Long Beach Press-Telegram required recipients to stop working and spend it all within the month.

What was Francis Townsend's profession before he launched his pension movement?

Roosevelt liked the plan's logic of shrinking the labour supply and boosting demand, but wanted a more comprehensive version.

Which two big job categories were left out of the original 1935 Social Security coverage?

Government employees and many teachers, nurses and librarians were also excluded; 65% of the Black workforce fell outside the program.

Which 1937 Supreme Court case upheld Social Security as spending for the general welfare?

The 7 to 2 decision found the old-age program did not violate the Tenth Amendment.

Flemming v. Nestor (1960) established that contributors have no what?

Ephram Nestor, a Bulgarian who paid in for 19 years, lost his benefits after being deported; the Court rejected 'accrued property rights'.

How many digits does a Social Security number have?

The format AAA-GG-SSSS once encoded a geographic area number, a group number and a serial number.

Who was announced as the holder of the first Social Security number in history, in December 1936?

Joseph Fay of the SSA pulled his record from the top of the first stack of 1,000 as a publicity stunt.

The most misused Social Security number ever, 078-05-1120, came from a sample card sold where?

A wallet maker used its secretary Hilda Whitcher's real number on display cards; over 40,000 people later claimed it as their own.

In June 2011 the SSA made what change to how numbers are assigned?

The first three digits no longer signal where a card was issued, and area numbers 000, 666 and 900 to 999 are still never used.

Which three-digit area number, along with 000 and 900-999, is never assigned?

Some Christians with religious objections to 666 can also request a different number.

Which federal agency helped distribute the first applications and mail out cards in 1936?

More than 1,000 post offices served as 'typing centers' and over twenty million cards were issued.

The Social Security Administration is headquartered in which Maryland community?

Known as Central Office, it sits just west of Baltimore; the agency runs the largest government program in the country.

Before 1946 the agency went by what name?

The three-member board created in 1935 started with no budget, no staff and no furniture.

Who served as the first Commissioner for Social Security, from 1946 to 1953?

He had chaired the Social Security Board since 1937 and is sometimes called 'Mr. Social Security'.

Robert M. Ball served as Commissioner of Social Security under which three presidents?

He held the post from 1962 to 1973 and later sat on the Greenspan Commission.

In what year were spouses and minor children of retired workers added as beneficiaries?

The 1939 amendments turned a retirement program into a family one, a year before the first monthly checks.

Disability benefits were added to Social Security under which president, in 1956?

Payments for permanently disabled workers over 50 began in July 1957; the age limit was dropped in 1960.

Early retirement at a reduced benefit became available at what age in 1961?

That early-claiming age has never changed, even as the full retirement age rose to 66 and 67.

Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law in 1965 at whose presidential library?

Truman and his wife Bess became the program's first two enrollees; twenty million joined in three years.

Which Medicare component covers hospital, skilled nursing and hospice services?

Part B is outpatient care, Part D is prescription drugs and Part C is the private Medicare Advantage route.

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) was created by amendments passed in which year?

It grew out of Richard Nixon's welfare reform push and began operating in 1974, replacing patchy state programs.

Automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments were mandated starting in what year?

Before that, COLAs came at irregular intervals, including a 77% jump in 1950.

Social Security COLAs are pegged to which price index?

It uses the third-quarter average for urban wage earners and clerical workers; in deflationary years there is simply no COLA.

The Greenspan Commission was appointed in 1981 by Congress and which president?

Its 1983 report led to benefit taxation, coverage of new federal hires and a higher retirement age for younger workers.

The 1983 amendments raised the full retirement age for younger workers to what?

The same package introduced taxation of benefits and brought new federal hires into the system.

What is the combined Social Security payroll tax rate, split between worker and employer?

Each side pays 6.2% up to the taxable maximum; the self-employed pay the full 12.4% themselves.

What is the employee's share of the Medicare portion of the FICA tax?

Unlike the Social Security portion, the Medicare tax applies to all wages with no cap.

How many quarters of coverage make a worker 'fully insured' for retirement benefits?

That is roughly ten years of covered work; quarters are earned when earnings pass a minimum set in law.

Retirement benefits are based on the average of a worker's highest how many years of earnings?

Earnings are indexed for inflation; anyone with fewer than 35 years gets zeros filled in for the missing ones.

Delaying a claim past full retirement age raises the monthly benefit by how much per year?

Someone with a full retirement age of 67 who waits until 70 gets 124% of their primary insurance amount.

After what age do delayed retirement credits stop accruing?

The credit works out to two-thirds of one percent of the PIA per month of delay until that birthday.

Roughly how many people were receiving Social Security benefits as of 2023?

Retired workers and their families made up 52.4 million of them, with 7.4 million disabled workers and 5.8 million survivors.

Social Security's total cost in 2022 was about $1.24 trillion, or what share of US GDP?

Costs are projected to climb to 6.3% of GDP by 2076 before easing slightly.

What share of people in paid US employment work in jobs covered by Social Security?

The main gap is about 6.6 million state and local government workers covered by their own pension plans instead.

Which statesman created the first welfare state, with old-age pensions, to undercut socialists?

The trustees projected in 2024 that the combined OASDI fund would run dry in 2035 without legislative changes.

The OASI Trust Fund holds its reserves in what form?

The interest-bearing securities are bought with surplus payroll tax revenue; the OASI and DI funds are legally separate.

Which statesman created the first welfare state, including old-age pensions, to undercut socialists?

Germany's first chancellor built social insurance in the 1880s, decades before the American program.

Which adviser, called ‘The Man Who Built Medicare’, worked out the program’s details?

Both rules had reduced benefits for people who also drew pensions from jobs outside the system; Joe Biden signed the repeal.

Which adviser, called 'The Man Who Built Medicare', helped draft the program's details?

Cohen advised reformers to partner with insurance companies to make Medicare politically palatable.

Medicare's initial payroll tax, added in 1966, was what rate?

It has since roughly doubled for each side of the paycheck, and there is no wage cap on it.

Which means-tested program for aged, blind and disabled people was handed to the SSA to run in 1972?

Unlike Social Security itself, SSI is means-tested and began paying low-income aged, blind and disabled people in 1974.

In which year was taxation of Social Security benefits first introduced?

It was one of the Greenspan Commission's fixes for the early-1980s financing crisis.