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What is the spending on Social Security?
In FY 2020 the federal government spent $1,095 billion on Social Security.
Social Security Spending Analysis
This page shows the current trends in Social Security spending on the OASI and DI programs. There are also charts on OASI and DI spending history. See here for a general history of entitlement spending. See here for spending forecast from latest OASDI Trustees Report.
Recent Social Security Spending
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US Social Security Spending Since 1935
Social Security benefits cost about 5 percent of GDP each year.
Social Security Program Growth
Chart S.13f: Social Security Spending since 1935
Social Security, the federal old-age pension program, was passed in 1935 in time for the 1936 presidential election. The first old-age benefits were distributed in 1938.
Social Security benefits were modest in the early years and did not exceed one percent of GDP until 1955. But the program cost increased rapidly, reaching 2.2 percent of GDP in 1960.
Benefit increase slowed somewhat in the 1960s, reaching 3.2 percent in 1971. Costs increased again in the early 1970s before peaking at 4.81 percent in 1983.
Social Security benefits as a percent of GDP slowly declined for the rest of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s down to a low of 4.0 percent of GDP in 2005. But the Great Recession o 2007-09 bumped Social Security up to 4.72 percent of GDP in 2010. Social Security spending has been just under 5 percent GDP since 2013.
Social Security Disability Insurance Growth
Chart S.14f: Social Security Spending
The Social Security Disability Insurance Program was enacted in the 1950s and payments began in 1958. Eligibility requirements relaxed in the 1980s.
Starting from zero in 1957 Social Security’s Disability Insurance program reached 0.5 percent of GDP in 1975.
Peaking at 0.55 percent of GDP in the early 1980s, payments declined to a low of 0.43 percent in 1990. But then payments increased, breaching 0.5 percent of GDP in 1993 and 0.6 percent of GDP in 2002. DI reached 0.7 percent of GDP in 2006 and peaked at 0.85 percent of GDP in 2011-13; DI spending is expected to decline to 0.67 percent of GDP by 2020.
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Spending Data Sources
Spending data is from official government sources.
- Federal spending data since 1962 comes from the president’s budget.
- All other spending data comes from the US Census Bureau.
Gross Domestic Product data comes from US Bureau of Economic Analysis and measuringworth.com.
Detailed table of spending data sources here.
Federal spending data begins in 1792.
State and local spending data begins in 1820.
State and local spending data for individual states begins in 1957.
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| Monthly Federal Spending/Revenue/Deficit Charts Federal Coronavirus/COVID-19 Response |
Gross Federal Debt
| Debt Now: | $27,169,498,275,690.70 | Debt 2/28: | $23,409,959,150,243.63 |
usgovernmentspending.com now shows the new numbers for total FY 2020 total outlays and receipts on its Estimate vs. Actual page. The Monthly Treasury Statement includes "Table 4: Receipts of the United States Government, September 2019 and Other Periods." This table of receipts by source is used for usgovernmentspending.com to post details of federal receipt actuals for FY 2020. This FTS report on FY 20 actuals is a problem for usgovernmentspending.com because this site uses Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction from the Budget of the United States as its basic source for federal subfunction outlays. But the Monthly Treasury Statement only includes "Table 9. Summary of Receipts by Source, and Outlays by Function of the U.S. Government, September 2020 and Other Periods". Subfunction amounts don't get reported until the FY22 budget in February 2021. Until then usgovernmentspending.com estimates actual outlays by "subfunction" for FY 2020 by factoring subfunction budgeted amounts for FY20 by the ratio between relevant actual and budgeted "function" amounts where actual outlays by subfunction cannot be gleaned from the Monthly Treasury Statement. On top of that, the unbudgeted spending to fight the COVID-19 virus is tucked into various places where you'd least expect it. We have tried to unearth these monies in the FTS and translate them into subfunction amounts. Final detailed FY 2020 actuals will not appear on usgovernmentspending.com until the FY 2022 federal budget is published in February 2021 with the actual outlays for FY 2020 in Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction. Budget NewsU.S. budget deficit Historical Tables | The White House Trump to Begin Releasing Fiscal 2020 Budget Plan on March 11 > archive BlogState and Local Finances for FY 2018 CBO Long Term Budget Outlook for 2020 State FY20 Taxes Update > blog Spend linksus numbers • us budget • custom chart • deficit/gdp • spend/gdp • debt/gdp • us gdp • us real gdp • state gdp • breakdown • federal • state • local • 2019 • 2020 • 2021 • california • texas |
