Retirees Get 265% of What They Paid Into Social Security—but Will Young Americans?

Workers born in the 1960s are on track to receive Social Security benefits worth more than 2.6 times the taxes they personally paid into the program, according to a new analysis.

The findings, from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), arrive as Social Security’s retirement trust fund approaches a looming insolvency crisis that could trigger a 22% cut to scheduled benefits.

The issue is already surfacing in Senate races across the country, as candidates elected this year could still be in office when Congress is forced to shore up the program or allow its reserves to run dry.

“Social Security is YOUR money,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, said in a post on X earlier this month. “You paid in—and you should be able to count on those benefits.”

But the new analysis complicates that popular framing. It found that beneficiaries exceed everything they personally paid in Social Security taxes after only three years of retirement. After roughly six years, they exceed the combined contributions made by both the worker and their employer.

As insolvency approaches, the findings raise a much bigger question: Who will absorb the cost of maintaining a retirement system that promises more in benefits than its dedicated revenue can support?

The answer could deepen a generational wealth divide that already separates many of today’s retirees from the workers financing their benefits.

Retirees are getting substantially more than they paid in

Workers born in the 1960s are expected to receive Social Security benefits worth about 265% of the payroll taxes they personally paid, after adjusting for the time value of money, according to CRFB.

Even after counting the Social Security taxes paid by their employers, scheduled benefits are worth about 133% of combined contributions.

Consider a median-wage worker retiring in 2027.

Assuming that the worker collects benefits through age 85, the average life expectancy, they are projected to receive about $730,000 in nominal Social Security benefits over retirement, compared with less than $200,000 in combined taxes paid by the worker and their employer.

Of course, none of this means retirees are collecting benefits they shouldn't receive. The program was designed as social insurance, not as a savings account that offers a 1-to-1 return on a worker's contribution.

But it does create a strained generational wealth dynamic. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now counts accrued Social Security benefits as a form of family wealth—representing 20% of all U.S. family wealth in 2022. For families in the bottom quarter of the wealth distribution, it accounted for nearly half.

But Social Security wealth is fundamentally different from a home or investment portfolio. It can’t be sold or borrowed against, and it can’t be passed down as an inheritance after its owner dies.

Younger Americans already face a harder path to building that wealth

Housing sits at the center of that divide. Not only does it allow owners to build and pass on wealth through home equity, but it can also provide stability in retirement.

Among households headed by someone 65 or older, 43% of homeowners who still have mortgages are housing cost–burdened, compared with just 19% of homeowners who own their homes free and clear, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

But younger generations are having a harder time breaking into the housing market than their predecessors. In 2025, the share of first-timers fell to a low of just 21% of homebuyers, with their median age reaching an all-time high of 40 years old. Baby boomers, meanwhile, dominated the market, accounting for 42% of homebuyers.

The mismatch could be costly. Previous research from Realtor.com® has shown that buying by age 30 can result in a 22.5% ($119,000) net worth bonus by age 50. While buying later means fewer years to pay down a mortgage, accumulate appreciation, and build the equity that could eventually become an inheritance.

Social Security’s shortfall could deepen the divide

How Congress chooses to address the insolvency could add to that friction.

Lawmakers essentially have three broad paths to close the financing gap—reduce benefits, raise revenue, or find additional federal funding—and each distributes the cost differently.

Allowing benefits to fall after trust-fund depletion would hit lower-wealth families particularly hard.

CBO estimates that valuing Social Security based on the lower benefits that could actually be paid after insolvency would reduce the total wealth of families in the bottom half of the distribution by about 10%. For the top 1%, the reduction would be just 0.2%.

But preserving scheduled benefits could hit younger generations exactly where they are already struggling: in housing.

CRFB estimates Social Security will cost about 35% more than it collects in dedicated revenue over the next 75 years. Preserving full scheduled benefits through general funding would require an estimated $2.7 trillion between 2032 and 2036 alone.

If greater federal borrowing becomes part of the solution, it could also put upward pressure on interest rates—raising the cost of mortgages, student loans, and other debt used by younger Americans trying to build wealth.

The Conference Board, a nonprofit think tank, modeled what that could mean for a family buying a $600,000 home with 20% down in 2036.

Under its high-deficit scenario, the buyer would pay nearly $24,000 more over the life of the mortgage than under the baseline. Under an extreme interest-rate shock, the additional cost would approach $200,000.

Those scenarios are not forecasts, but they illustrate the difficult trade-off confronting policymakers: Preserving government commitments will likely mean shifting some of the cost onto someone else.

That makes the coming fight over Social Security about far more than the size of a monthly benefits check. Baked into the debate is a question about which generation gets to build and ultimately pass wealth down to the next one.