Social Security benefits play a vital role in reducing poverty in every state, and they lift more people above the poverty line than any other program in the United States. Without Social Security, 22.0 million more adults and children would be below the poverty line, according to our analysis using the March 2024 Current Population Survey. Although most of those whom Social Security keeps out of poverty are aged 65 or older, 5.7 million are under age 65, including 959,000 children. (
