On its 80th birthday, here are 30 things you probably didn't know about Social Security.

America’s Social Security program is turning 80 years old this year, but some believe it’s somewhat of an auspicious anniversary, more reason for caution and nail-biting than celebration. But no matter if you love it or lump it, there is no debating that Social Security has been one of the single most significant, ambitious, and helpful government programs in the history of the world. And while the particulars of Social Security are covered ad nauseam in other financial articles and guides, we thought we’d cover 30 things you probably didn’t know about 80-year old Social Security.

Happy birthday!

1.  On August 14, 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act that made the Social Security program law.

2.  The program was founded because so many Americans had just lost all of their assets and savings in the Great Depression, leaving them nothing for retirement.

3.  80 years later, 165 million workers are currently covered under Social Security, including 46.6 million seniors age 65 or older.

4.  And about 60 million Americans currently receive Social Security benefits, adding up to $863 billion of payouts.

5.  To put it in perspective, that amount is the largest item on our federal budget and accounts for about a quarter of all spending.

6.  Within the next two decades, the number of SS beneficiaries should grow to 90 million.

7.  Compare the huge number of Social Security retirees today to the program’s first year of benefit payouts, 1940, when only 220,000 Americans were signed up.

8.  In fact, Social Security's first beneficiary was a woman named Ida May Fuller from Ludlow, Vermont, who received monthly payments of $22.54 a month for 35 years.

9.  FDR’s original Social Security program only paid benefits to retired workers. But later on, the program was expanded to offer disability benefits and payments for a beneficiary's spouse and children for widows and widowers.

10. The average monthly payment for SS benefits now is $1,221, or $14,700 a year.

11. Since Social Security first collected tax contributions in 1937, it’s collected more than $13 trillion in income and paid our $10.6 trillion, as of 2007.

12. That amount of money that flows in and out of Social Security is so enormous that each year, it manages more money than the economies of all but the 16 richest countries in the world!

13. Each day, 182,000 people visit Social Security offices, and 445,000 people call the Social Security Administration.

14. Just last year, there were 17 million applications to replace lost, damaged, or stolen original Social Security cards!

15. 2010 was the first year that Social Security disbursements outpaced its income, if you don’t count interest on trust-fund assets. Even factoring in that interest, disbursements should outpace income by 2021, and that interest is expected to be completely exhausted by 2033.

16. Only 8% of American workers are very confident and only 24% somewhat confident that Social Security will continue to provide benefits of at least equal value to today’s retirees and recipients.

17. 33% of today’s workers say that Social Security will be a major source of income when they retire, compared to 46% who say it will only be a minor source of income and 20% who say they won’t count on it for income at all.

18. Today, the average retiree gets 12 more years of Social Security benefits than a person did in 1940 due to the fact that we’re living longer AND retiring earlier (an average age of 64 instead of 68 in 1950.)

19. And while Social Security is still the largest source of income for Americans over 65, only one in three people depend on it to cover 90 percent.

20. Thanks to the increase in elder Americans (Baby Boomers), the Recession’s impact on stagnating wages, and a larger population receiving benefits, there are less than three workers paying into Social Security for every one retiree eligible for a payout.

21. That’s a sharp drop from 2009, when there were 3 workers per retiree, and 1960, when there were 5 workers paying into the system for ever person collecting a check.

22. In fact, 75 million Americans are on the cusp of retirement and being eligible for Social Security payouts, as each day, 10,000 more people turn 65 and the oldest of the Baby Boomers generation turn 68 this year.

23. Each American citizen is assigned a Social Security number, shortly after birth since 1989. But many people don’t realize that those 9-digit combinations are not random. In fact, the first three digits are based on the geographic region you were born in, with lower numbers in the Northeast and higher numbers in the West. The middle two numbers are called the group number and issued in nonconsecutive order between 01 and 99. Meanwhile, the last four digits are issued sequentially. So far, there have been 420 million unique Social Security numbers that aren’t being reused after the person’s death.

24. To save money, Social Security is phasing out paper checks. It actually costs them $1 to mail out each paper check, while electronic deposits and transfers only cost 1/10^th of that. Does it sound like small change? In fact, going paperless is expected to save taxpayers $300 million over the next five years!

25. The Social Security Administration is in dire straights, both financially and operationally. In fact, over the past three years, the SSA has lost 11,000 employees, about 12% of its workforce, and by 2022, about 60% of its supervisors will be able to retire. Additional budget cuts have forced 44 field offices to consolidate, 503 mobile contact stations to close, and eight new hearing offices to be suspended. Even call centers are under siege, with average wait times when someone calls in now over 10 minutes, when it used to be only 5 minutes as recently as 2012.

26. The struggles of Social Security have been so well documented that we could easily write another book about its impending financial hardship. But basically, by 2016, the trust fund that supports Social Security’s disability payments is expected to be empty. If (when) that happens, the 11 million people who now receive Social Security disability payments will see an automatic 19 percent cut in benefits.

27. The math gets even scarier when you consider that over the next 75 years, Social Security is projected to payout $159 trillion MORE in benefits than it collects in taxes.

28. If we adjusted that number for future inflation, that means our Social Security program will be underfunded by about $35.3 trillion in 2015 dollars. Just how big of a gap is that? $35.3 trillion is TWICE the entire national debt!

29. It’s not a complete doom and gloom scenario, as Congress is already floating some ideas to remedy this shortfall and get Social Security back on track. However, solutions include increasing SS taxes, cutting benefits, and pushing back the retirement age – none of which are very popular with the American people.

30. But even a payroll tax increase of 1.3 percent, benefit cut of 16.2 percent, or any combination thereof, would right the projected Social Security deficit and allow the program to remain solvent for about another 80 years – in time for another birthday celebration.

30 Incredible facts and stats about the U.S. economy.

Give it away.

1. Since 2008, U.S. citizens have donated $19.1 million to our Treasury to help pay down the national debt.

2. The U.S.A and its citizens contributed $298 billion to charity in 2011, more than the GDP of all but 33 countries in the world.

Industry.

3. By dividing his net worth by his age, you can calculate that Bill Gates has made more than $100,000 every hour he’s been alive!

4. If you total the annual profits of the entire U.S. airline industry going back to 1948, you come up with - $32 billion.

5. In the Q1 of 2012, the number of Apple iPhones sold per day was greater than the number of babies born per day all over the world (402,000 phones vs. 300,00 babies.)

6. In New York City, one in seven crimes committed involves a stolen Apple product.

Our economy.

7. The IRS states that illegal tax evasion reduced government revenue by $450 billion in 2006, the last year calculated.  To put that in perspective, that’s the approximate annual price tag for Medicare.

8. The last time interest rates were this low, in the 1950’s, the following three decades saw Treasury bonds lose 40% of their value.

9. Since 1854, the average number of months between recessions in the United States is 42.  It’s been just about 42 months since out last recession.

10. Speaking of Apple, the company’s cash and investments are now equal to the GDP of Hungary and more than those of Iraq and Vietnam.

Retirement:

11. 46.1 % of Americans die with less than $10,000 in net assets.

12. About 36% of workers have $1,000 or less saved for retirement.  60% have less than $25,000, including savings, their home, and other assets.

13. The 100 biggest public pension funds have 1.2 trillion in unfunded liabilities. 

Wages and Savings:

14. The population of workers aged 55 and older is just about to surpass the workers aged 24-34 for the first time in U.S. history.

15. 50% of Americans do not have even 1 month’s income saved.

16. When asked, “Do you have 3 months emergency funds saved in case of illness, job loss, or other catastrophe,” 60% of people did not.

17. 57% of American households do not have a budget plan.

18. The average Canadian household is wealthier than the average U.S. household for the first time ever.

19. In 2011, 50 million Americans couldn’t afford to buy food at some point.  In June 2012 alone, 46.7 million Americans received food stamps.

Debt:

20. Credit card debt as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product is at the lowest level in 20 years. 

21. As of Q3 in 2013, we have 391.24 million credit card accounts, down significantly from 457.64 million in Q3 of 2003.

Markets:

22. The S&P 500 gained 135% between March 2009 and January 2013, the period we called the “Great Recession.”  From 1996 to 2000, considered the greatest bull market in history, it gained exactly 135%.

23. Since 1928, the Dow Jones has jumped more than 10% in a single day eight times.  It’s declined more than 10% in a single day four times.  It’s gone up or down more than 5% in a single day 136 times.

24. Since March of 2009, when the U.S. markets hit rock bottom, more than $8 trillion of lost wealth has been regained.

25. Since 2011, 84% of actively managed U.S. stock funds failed to perform as well as the S&P 500. 

26. Over the past ten years, hedge fun managers unperformed the stock market AND inflation!

Education:

27. As of 2010, 44% of people earning only minimum wage had attended some college, up from 25% in 1979.

28. Last year, 53.6 % of bachelor-degree holders age 25 or under were jobless or unemployed, the highest number in 11 years.

Oil.

29. By 2012, the U.S. will surpass Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil-producer.

30. In 2012, U.S. domestic oil production grew more than any year in the history of the industry, which goes back to 1859.

A shocking look at the U.S. rental housing crisis.

An unexpected casualty of the mortgage bust and recalibration has emerged – the rental market.  The cost to rent a property is skyrocketing, and at the same time supply is shrinking.  It’s a new problem, as prior to 2008 home ownership levels were at all-time highs, thanks to loosening lending standards and a rapidly appreciating real estate market.  But since the crash more than 4 million families have lost their homes to foreclosure, pushing those former-owners into the rental market.  There are now 43 million rental households in the United States, totaling about 35% of all homes, the highest level in over a decade. 

Tightening supply and driving up demand, many of the affordable single family residences and properties have been snatched up by big investors, who had the cash to capitalize on a down market.  It’s believed that more than 3 million single-family residences are now investor-owned. 

However, increase in demand for rentals isn’t only due to the real estate crash, but the economy as a whole.  As U.S. workers faced their fears about unemployment, layoffs, and lost confidence, banks tightened their vaults, making it harder to get a mortgage loan.  The result was an accelerated wave of those who wanted to rent, not own homes.

In fact, for the 25-54 age group, basically prime working years, the adjusted cost of renting is the highest since they started tracking those statistics in 1970.  The cost of renting a home is far outpacing inflation and real wages.  This recipe of increased demand and inflated prices means that many families struggle with housing costs.

Currently, 50% of all renters pay more than 30% of their income to rent.  That’s a marked increase from only 18% of renters paying more than 30% of their income a decade ago.  30% is also the accepted barometer for housing affordability. 

The problem is even worse for those on the lower end of the economic scale, and an astounding 30% of renters pay at least 50% of their income to housing costs!  According to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the average hourly wage among all renters is $14.32, yet it takes at least $18.79 to afford an apartment at fair market rent.  The Fed calls reports that the ratio of rental costs to disposable income is the worst level since the Great Depression.  

The numbers hold little reason for future optimism - over the past five years, median household income has fallen every year after adjusting for inflation, to the point where Americans earn about what they did in 1996.

"We are in the midst of the worst rental affordability crisis that this country has known," said Shaun Donovan, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

What do these numbers mean to you, the average consumer?  Quite simply, buy a house if you can – the long term aggregate costs will be profoundly lower than renting, and additionally, if you have the means, buy a rental property.  The numbers are all in your favor.