© 2025 Pension Rights Center. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 2.5 Generic License.
By David Brandolph
Let’s all raise a glass in honor of Social Security, the nation’s most successful social insurance program, as it celebrates its 90th anniversary.
On August 14, 1935, America was mired in the Great Depression with roughly one-half of our nation’s elderly living in poverty. On that day, precisely 90 years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) signed Social Security into law, introducing, as set out in a recent “New York Times” article entitled “Social Security Is Turning 90: Here Are Six Myths About It That Won’t Go Away,” the then novel concept of retirement for those who had reached the end of their working days.
As reporter Mark Miller explained in the article, back then “Americans had no meaningful way to plan for an income after work ended.” Pensions and retirement savings programs were scarce. When seniors stopped working and no longer had an income, those who didn’t have families to support them often became impoverished—with some moving into government-run poorhouses offering services such as room and board, often in exchange for work.
With the onset of Social Security, seniors would have a reliable income source that has lasted for approaching a century while poorhouses for the elderly have become a historic relic.
“Social Security is secure, efficient and the most important source of retirement income for the vast majority of Americans,” said Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works and chair of the Pension Rights Center’s Board of Directors.
Social Security’s retirement program, administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA), has grown in importance and scope over its 90 years. As of November 2024, the SSA trustees’ report said that about 54 million Americans were receiving Social Security retirement benefits, often a lifeline for so many families.
In fact, Social Security is a major source of income for most beneficiaries. According to SSA research, about 40% of retirees (in 2015) received at least one-half of their income from Social Security. The program provided at least 90% of the income for another 1 in 7 (about 14%).
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) found that, in 2023, Social Security lifted 16.3 million people age 65 and older out of poverty.
Almost all workers participate in Social Security by making payroll tax contributions, and almost all older adults receive Social Security benefits. In fact, SSA estimates that 97% of older adults (aged 60 to 89) either receive or will receive Social Security.
With the steady decline in recent years of defined benefit plans, which offer a certain and guaranteed lifetime benefit in contrast to other retirement savings plans, Social Security will be the only source of guaranteed retirement income for most Americans—and also one that’s free from investment risk and uncertainty.
Thus, Social Security can be viewed as a nearly universal defined benefit plan in which retirement benefits increase yearly through application of a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). This important and difficult-to-get COLA feature enables retirees’ payments to keep pace with inflation, helping to ensure that they don’t slip into poverty as they age. The 2025 COLA was 2.5%.
The CBPP reported that SSA is one of the most efficient, cost-effective and well-administered agencies in the federal government, having a benefit payment accuracy rate of over 99%. The agency’s own inspector general found that less than 1% of its payments were improper.
Don’t believe the naysayers who say that Social Security won’t be there for future retirees. Although the program’s retirement trust fund is projected to be exhausted by 2033, Congress can easily keep the fund solvent for generations. To raise sufficient revenue, one idea popularly supported by the majority of Americans is to end the Social Security payroll tax cap—currently $176,100 in annual wages—so that those making above that, including high roller millionaires and billionaires, pay the tax on all of their earnings.
Furthermore, it’s important to know that Social Security can never go bankrupt. Nearly all (97%) of its income comes from the payroll tax contributions of workers and employers, including U.S. Treasury Bond interest on these contributions. As long as there are workers in America paying taxes into the system, Social Security will have income.
Even if Congress were to take no action to address the depletion of Social Security’s trust fund, the agency’s latest trustees report projects that the fund can pay 100% of promised benefits through 2033 and that revenue from payroll taxes will enable SSA to continue paying more than 75% of its benefit obligations until at least 2097.
While Social Security helps keep many retirees out of poverty, its benefits are modest at best. According to SSA statistics, the average worker’s monthly retirement benefit as of December 2023 was $1,905 (and that’s before a minimum $185 Medicare Part B premium (in 2025), applicable to most retirees age 65 or older, is commonly deducted from each payment).
With benefits so low, it’s not surprising to know that about 6 million or more seniors age 65 and older were living in poverty in 2022.
That’s why it’s urgent that we all work to strengthen Social Security and resist efforts to make it weaker or less reliable.
Social Security’s 90th anniversary is truly worth celebrating, as its overwhelming popularity and ongoing success demonstrates. We hope to continue celebrating its enhanced success in the coming years.
