You are here: Social Security Administration > Research, Statistics & Policy Analysis > Population Projection: Lifetime Low Earners in 2050
Population Projections
- American
Indians and
Alaska Natives - Divorced
Spousal
Beneficiaries - Early
Eligibility Age
Beneficiaries - Lifetime
Low
Earners
Oldest
Old- Sporadic
Low
Earners - Spousal-
Only
Beneficiaries - Survivor-
Only
Beneficiaries - Women
& Dual
Entitlement
Lifetime Low Earners in 2050
Methodology »Released: March 2015
Next expected update: 2020
DEFINITION: We are defining a lifetime low earner as a Social Security beneficiary aged 60 or older who has at least 30 years of work with each year's earnings at or above four times the amount needed for one Social Security quarterly credit and less than half of the national average wage index.
In 2050, we project that:
- More than 3 percent of beneficiaries aged 60 or older will be lifetime low earners.
- More lifetime low earners will be women and have a high-school education or less compared with all beneficiaries aged 60 or older.
- Fewer lifetime low earners will be disabled compared with all beneficiaries aged 60 or older.
- More than half of lifetime low earners will be in the lowest paying average indexed monthly earnings (AIME) quintile. a
- Nearly 5 percent of lifetime low earners will have household incomes below 100 percent of poverty.
Population Characteristics
Percentage with characteristic

Paying AIME Quintile
Percentage of beneficiaries in quintile

Poverty Rates
Percentage below 100 percent of poverty

a. The paying AIME is the AIME of the higher-earning spouse if an individual receives a spousal or survivor benefit or the individual's own AIME if they only receive their own work benefit
SOURCE: Modeling Income in the Near Term, Version 7 (MINT7) microsimulation model using 2012 Trustees Report assumptions.