{"id":634938,"date":"2026-05-10T15:16:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T15:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/634938\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T15:16:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T15:16:20","slug":"most-retirees-dont-live-mostly-off-social-security-heres-how-theyre-paying-the-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/634938\/","title":{"rendered":"Most Retirees Don’t Live Mostly Off Social Security\u2014Here’s How They’re Paying the Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Most Most senior citizens don’t primarily rely on Social Security payments.
Credit: Jose Luis Raota via Getty Images Key Takeaways <\/p>\n

Social Security’s share of older Americans’ income climbs with age, reaching 40% among those 80 and older.<\/p>\n

Most older adults supplement Social Security with wages, pensions, retirement funds, and income from assets.<\/p>\n

You may envision relying on Social Security<\/a> during retirement, but the data shows older adults tend to depend on other income sources.<\/p>\n

About 19% of Americans 65 and older rely on Social Security for 90% or more of their income, according to a 2025 Congressional Research Service report. Other sources fill the gap: wages, payments from pensions and retirement funds, and income from assets, according to the analysis, which matched individual tax records with survey responses.<\/p>\n

All told, Social Security accounted for 30% of income among Americans 65 and older, with wages contributing 27%, pensions and retirement funds 24%, and asset income 12%, the report found. The last category includes interest and dividends<\/a>, as well as income from renting out property or owning a business.<\/p>\n

Why This Matters to Consumers <\/p>\n

Many Americans plan to work well into their 60s, but end up retiring sooner due to health problems and other setbacks. Building up retirement and investment accounts can help provide a cushion when your retirement timeline shifts.<\/p>\n

Social Security takes on a bigger role as people age, though it never becomes older Americans’ main source of income at any age. Social Security accounted for 19% of income among 65- to 69-year-olds, climbing to 40% among those 80 and older. (To be sure, many Americans are more likely to rely on Social Security, including lower-income households, single adults, as well as Black and Latin Americans.)<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

The report relies on 2019 data, but there\u2019s little reason to think retirement trends have changed much. Research has consistently shown that most older adults don’t get 90% or more of their income from Social Security<\/a>, and that Americans tend to understate their income from pensions and retirement funds.<\/p>\n

Still, many Americans are counting on Social Security to anchor their finances in later life. About 70% of U.S. adults surveyed expect to collect Social Security benefits and 32% anticipate the payments will be their \u201cprimary\u201d source of income, according to research published last summer by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies.<\/p>\n

The Social Security trustees project that the program’s main retirement trust fund (OASI) will be depleted in 2033, with payroll taxes covering only about 77% of scheduled benefits at that point. After the One Big Beautiful Bill Act<\/a> became law in July 2025, the Social Security Administration’s chief actuary moved that estimate up to 2032<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most senior citizens don’t primarily rely on Social Security payments.Credit: Jose Luis Raota via Getty Images Key Takeaways…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,37657,1119,5011,147,530,733,177378],"class_list":["post-634938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-income-sources","tag-older-adults","tag-older-americans","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-social-security","tag-source-of-income"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}