Who actually relies on Social Security, in one chart

On Monday afternoon, the trustees for Social Security and Medicare will release their reports on the state of finances for these two retirement programs. And there will be plenty of discussion on whether the programs are in crisis or blowing up the deficit or whatnot. But it’s worth taking a step back and looking at what they actually do.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a primer with helpful charts on who actually relies Social Security. For a majority of the elderly in the United States, Social Security benefits provide nearly 50 percent of all income. For about one-quarter of retirees, Social Security provides more than 90 percent of income:

To get a sense for the numbers here, in 2010, the average Social Security retirement benefit was about $14,000 per year.

Here’s even more recent data from the Social Security Administration on who uses the program and how. Paul Krugman points out that, for the majority of the country, Social Security plays a far more important role than 401(k)s or private pensions: “The elderly in the middle of the income distribution get 66 percent of their income from Social Security, versus 9 percent from private pensions and just 5 percent from assets.”