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Number of Social Security Beneficiaries

Updated October 29, 2004
The graph below shows the number of beneficiaries receiving Social Security benefits at the end of calendar quarters, beginning with data for March 1970.
Graph is link to table showing number of beneficiaries
Beneficiaries receiving benefits
at the end of September 2004
All beneficiaries47,467,774
Retired workers and dependents32,893,498
Survivors6,724,430
Disabled workers and dependents7,849,846

Counting dual-entitled beneficiaries
If a beneficiary is entitled to both a primary benefit (as a retired or disabled worker) and another benefit type (say a spouse) payable from the same trust fund, then he or she is counted only once in our statistics as a primary beneficiary.

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