Social Security (SSA) has 61 million beneficiaries as of March 2012.
Medicare has 49 million beneficiaries as of November 2011.
Medicaid has over 50 million beneficiaries; another source puts the current number at 58 million.
Kaiser Family Foundation says roughly 7 million "dual-eligibles" who receive both Medicaid and Medicare, so let's use the data point of 50 million Medicaid-only recipients.
We can assume that most people drawing Medicare benefits also draw Social Security, while the 8+ million drawing disability from Social Security are also covered by Medicaid.
However you slice it, there are roughly 60 million people drawing Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid and another 50 million Medicaid recipients for a total of 110 million people drawing significant entitlements.
As I have noted here many times, there are only 115 million full-time jobs in the U.S.
That means the ratio of workers to recipients of significant "pay as you go" entitlements is roughly 1-to-1: 115 million full-time workers and 110 million people drawing Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.
These programs consume the majority of the Federal budget. The Federal government spends around $3.7 trillion and collects around $2.6 trillion in taxes, so the basic deficit is $1.1 trillion. Off-balance sheet "supplemental appropriations" mean the real deficit is actually considerably higher.
Social Security costs $817 billion, Medicare and Medicaid costs total about $800 billion annually, and program outlays rise every year. The Pentagon/National Security budget is around $690 billion.
As I detailed in The Fraud at the Heart of Social Security (January 17, 2011), the program paid out $707 billion in 2010 and collected $631 billion in taxes, a $76 billion shortfall for 2010. The current program (2012) cost is $817 billion, a leap of $100 billion in a few short years as Baby Boomers flood into the program.
Of the roughly 150 million workers in the U.S., 38 million earn less than $10,000 per year, 50 million earn less that $15,000 a year and 61 million earn less than $20,000 annually. All these numbers are drawn directly from Social Security Administration payroll data.
100 million wage earners, or 2/3 the entire workforce, earn less than $40,000 per year.
Please read on at:http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay12/unsustainable-Medicare5-12.html
