Background

As a service to data analysts and developers, we are providing flattened time series files concatenating OASDI Beneficiaries by State and County tables from the 1999 edition through the latest edition. The files will be updated along with every new annual release.

The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) files include publication- and table-specific metadata, including variable naming, relationships, and units, plus sources, notes, or footnotes. Users of the Comma-Separated Values (CSV) files should refer to the JSON files or the latest annual edition for these details.

These are beta release files. The schema (particularly measure and dimension ids/keys) may change based on:

• user feedback,
• evolving standards from the federal statistical community, or
• development of similar files for other SSA statistical releases.

To provide feedback, email statistics@ssa.gov.

Available Files

• Table 1. Beneficiaries as a percentage of the total resident population and of the population aged 65 or older, by state
  • oasdi_state_county_table_1.json
  • oasdi_state_county_table_1.csv
• Table 2. Number of beneficiaries in current-payment status, by state or other area, type of benefit, and sex of beneficiaries aged 65 or older
  • oasdi_state_county_table_2.json
  • oasdi_state_county_table_2.csv
• Table 3. Amount of benefits in current-payment status, by state or other area, type of benefit, and sex of beneficiaries aged 65 or older
  • oasdi_state_county_table_3.json
  • oasdi_state_county_table_3.csv
• Table 4. Number of beneficiaries in current-payment status, by county, type of benefit, and sex of beneficiaries aged 65 or older
  • oasdi_state_county_table_4.json
  • oasdi_state_county_table_4.csv
• Table 5. Amount of benefits in current-payment status, by county, type of benefit, and sex of beneficiaries aged 65 or older
  • oasdi_state_county_table_5.json
  • oasdi_state_county_table_5.csv

User Notes

• JSON and CSV files can be opened in any text editor or imported into any spreadsheet or data visualization application.
• These files are regenerated every year from the full archive of annual HTML tables, including any post-release corrections. Errata in 2026 or later will be listed on any affected edition's index page and this page.
• Modifications made for cross-year consistency:
  • All editorial language matches the latest edition.
  • In the 1999 and 2000 editions, Tables 1, 2, and 3 were in a different order than in later editions. Population-share was Table 3, not Table 1. The flat files follow the current order.
  • For the 1999 through 2016 editions, the numbers in the population-share table (now Table 1) were scaled to thousands. Since the 2017 edition, the numbers are scaled to ones. For the flat files, the numbers for 1999 through 2016 were rescaled with a simple 1,000 multiplier to match the current format.
  • For Tables 2 and 3, the Retired Workers column has always included special age-72 beneficiaries, if any. This was indicated with footnotes before the 2007 edition. Some earlier footnotes specified the count of special age-72 beneficiaries. These footnotes are omitted from the flat file; see individual editions before 2007 for these details.
• Tables 1, 2, and 3 (national statistics): The national values are included in the flat files for the following reasons:
  • In Table 1, the two “Percentage receviving benefits” values cannot be calculated from the state values.
  • In Table 3, the state/area values may not sum to the All areas values because of rounding.
  • Table 2 only includes the national values to be consistent with their inclusion in Tables 1 and 3.
• Tables 3 and 5 (amount of benefits):
  • All measures are of type string because any value may be footnote a (Less than $500.) and we leave it to end users to determine how best to handle this for their analysis.
• Tables 4 and 5 (state-level statistics):
  • The state values are included in the flat files for the following reasons:
    • Before the 2009 edition, Table 4 did not include individual rows for Unknown counties.
    • Table 5 county/city values may not sum to the state total values because of rounding.
  • While the annually released versions of Tables 4 and 5 label each state total row with "Total" and the state name, the flat files use the standardized term "State total" across all states to ease filtering and sorting.
  • Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia contain at least one independent city that is not part of a county. For these states, the counties are listed in alphabetical order, followed by the independent city or cities in alphabetical order. This county/city distinction, noted in the statistical tables with panel headings, is not explicitly indicated in the flat files. To request the addition of a county/city indicator in the flat files, please email statistics@ssa.gov.
  • American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Codes were introduced in these statistical tables in the 2008 edition. For cross-year consistency in the flat files, we have inserted ANSI Code = null for the earlier years. (In only the 2008 edition, these were originally labeled Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Codes, but we only use the ANSI name in the flat files.)
  • ANSI Code values are stored as strings to keep state-level values to two digits and county-level values to five digits, both with leading zeroes, as needed.