The Nationwide Retirement Institute’s 2025 Social Security Survey delivered a number that should stop anyone planning for retirement in their tracks. Fifty-six percent of American adults say they could not financially survive missing even half of a monthly Social Security payment. When you break that down by group, 61% of current recipients and 54% of those expecting future benefits land in the same position. That story reflects how thin the cushion has become for the people who already depend on these checks and for those who will.
The anxiety behind that number is not abstract. Eighty-three percent of survey respondents express concern about Social Security’s long-term viability, and 74% say they worry the program will run out of funding within their lifetime. Sixty-one percent say they need to keep working because Social Security simply will not pay enough. Those attitudes are not driven by pessimism. They are driven by math that does not work for the benefit levels most households receive.
The Gap Between What Social Security Covers and What Retirement Actually Costs
The survey puts the coverage gap in concrete terms. Current recipients report that Social Security covers roughly 59% of their retirement expenses, meaning more than 40% of the bill falls elsewhere, whether through personal savings, part-time work, or family support. What makes that gap harder to close is that 55% of current recipients and 57% of those expecting benefits did not expect Social Security to be enough to cover even their basic needs. The program is falling short of expectations that were already modest.
More than two-thirds of survey respondents believe tariffs will push inflation beyond what cost-of-living adjustments can cover, and the lived experience of current retirees supports that concern. Headline PCE inflation moved from 2.8% in February to 3.5% in March 2026. Cost-of-living adjustments move once a year. Prices move every month, and the categories retirees cannot easily cut, housing, healthcare, and food, have been among the most persistent.
What the Financial Strain Looks Like in Practice
Among those currently receiving Social Security, 52% have already cut back on discretionary spending because rising living costs are outpacing their benefits. 31% have reduced spending on essentials, including groceries and medications; 29% have leaned more heavily on savings or retirement accounts; 18% have downsized their living situation; and 15% have sought part-time work or additional income. These are not hypothetical trade-offs. These are decisions already being made.
Marital status sharpens the divide considerably. Among unmarried recipients, 59% have cut discretionary spending, compared with 46% of married or partnered recipients; 40% have reduced spending on essential items, compared with 24% of those who are married. Two Social Security checks in one household stretch further than one, and the survey makes that arithmetic visible in ways that should inform how single retirees plan well before they need to rely solely on benefits.
The Expectation Gap That Makes the Problem Worse
Nearly a quarter of non-retirees expect their living expenses to decrease in their first year of retirement. Retirees tell a different story. The survey data show that actual retirees spend 78% of their retirement income on essential expenses, compared to the 71% that non-retirees expect to spend. That seven-point gap is not trivial when it is applied to a fixed monthly income that already covers less than 60% of total expenses.
The perception that retirement gets cheaper is one of the more expensive assumptions a pre-retiree can make, because it reduces the urgency of building the reserves that would allow someone to delay claiming, absorb a disrupted payment, or weather an inflation surge that outpaces their annual adjustment.
What People Plan to Do About It
The survey asked respondents what actions they are taking or plan to take to offset the possibility of reduced Social Security income. The responses point to a population that is aware of the problem and reaching for practical solutions, even if the math remains difficult.
- Forty-one percent plan to cut current expenses to create more financial room.
- Thirty-six percent plan to work part-time in retirement to supplement their income.
- 27% plan to delay retirement entirely to keep earning income longer.
- 22% plan to generate income from retirement savings or investments, such as annuities or dividend-paying assets.
- 22% plan to work with a financial professional to develop a strategy to address the shortfall.
The 56% headline measures how little slack the average American household has right now. The survey data behind it, the coverage gaps, the spending cuts already underway, the expectation mismatches, and the inflation concerns point to the same conclusion. The cushion retirees need does not arrive automatically. It has to be built deliberately, and the survey makes clear that for a majority of American households, that work is either incomplete or has not yet begun.
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