Social Security
Retirement, survivors' and disability benefits paid from the Social Security trust funds.
In 2015 it was $887.8B, or $1.21T in 2025 dollars; after inflation it has changed by +31.1% since then.
Over time
Net outlays for Social Security in each fiscal year, from the Treasury’s September statements.
The figures
| Fiscal year | Net outlays | In 2025 dollars | Share of all spending |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $1,580,685,783,034 | $1.58T | 22.5% |
| 2024 | $1,460,913,705,753 | $1.50T | 21.6% |
| 2023 | $1,354,318,827,503 | $1.43T | 22.1% |
| 2022 | $1,218,674,437,414 | $1.34T | 19.4% |
| 2021 | $1,134,592,529,732 | $1.35T | 16.6% |
| 2020 | $1,095,817,057,878 | $1.36T | 16.7% |
| 2019 | $1,044,415,951,892 | $1.32T | 23.5% |
| 2018 | $987,795,949,710 | $1.27T | 24.0% |
| 2017 | $944,878,364,646 | $1.24T | 23.7% |
| 2016 | $916,077,987,133 | $1.23T | 23.8% |
| 2015 | $887,770,817,464 | $1.21T | 24.1% |
What is inside it
Its subfunctions, by the gross outlays of every agency account classified to each: before collections and transfers are netted, so they add to more than the Treasury’s figure above.
It is a single subfunction, Social security: $1.66T in gross outlays.
Which agencies pay for it
Gross outlays from each agency’s accounts in this function. Open an agency to see everything else it spends on.
The accounts it is paid from
Every federal account in the function, by the amount obligated (committed) in the year, which is what USAspending’s spending explorer reports by function; each account’s gross outlays are beside it where its agency reported them. Each opens on USAspending.gov.
Net outlays are the Monthly Treasury Statement’s, table 9. The subfunctions and agencies are the gross outlays agencies reported to USAspending.gov for fiscal year 2025; the accounts are its spending explorer’s obligations. In 2025 dollars restates each year with the CPI-U annual average of the calendar year the fiscal year ends in.