Social Security Recipients, K-12 Students, College Students

We have spoken at great length about the upcoming boomer crisis whereby all 60 million baby boomers will hit age 65+ in 2030 so we wanted to take a look at social security facts and figures.

We came across these two snapshots. Figures from 2019 reported in 2020:

And this one reporting 2020 figures in 2021:

What are some of the subtle differences? The first line states in 2019 there were 69.1 million people on social security and in 2020 that number jumped to 69.8 million which is an increase of 700,000 people. Oddly, the jump from 2020 to 2021 was up to 70 million which implies that only 200,000 new recipients were added when we know full well that there were millions of people that opted to retire early due to covid.

In 2019, 5.7 million were newly awarded social security and in 2020, that number jumped to 5.8 million. The other statistics didn’t seem to change much so what does this tell us?

According to Census.gov, there are currently 333 million people in the USA.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics in 2022:

• In fall 2021, about 49.5 million students were enrolled in public schools in prekindergarten to grade 12
  • 34.0 million attended prekindergarten to grade 8.
    • 1.4 million attended prekindergarten.
    • 3.6 million attended kindergarten.
  • 15.4 million attended grades 9 to 12.
    • 4.2 million attended grade 9, the grade when students typically enter high school.
• About 19.4 million students attended colleges and universities in fall 2020 

Let’s do some math:

333 million total USA population – 69.1 million on social security – 49.5 million in K-12 school – 19.4 million in college = 195 million. These rough calculations mean that about 58% of people in the USA are actually working full time but the number is likely lower since there are people that stay home to care for kids or the elderly. It is certainly possible some high school and college students work but those working hours are likely very limited.

The latest JOLTS report showed 11.2 million open jobs and based on the current demographic trends we don’t see anything that will change that so we’ll continue to look for opportunities to invest in companies that can perform well with limited labor resources.

Stay tuned and stay solvent…

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