Fort Wayne Celebrates Social Security's 90th Anniversary

This article is brought to you by AARP Indiana Fort Wayne volunteers Nancy McCammon-Hansen and Bonnie Pomerantz.

When you combine advocacy and education with ice cream, what do you get? A great event celebrating Social Security, hosted by AARP in Fort Wayne!

A dozen volunteers and staff member Emily Gorman came together on August 14th at the Fort Wayne Community Center to host an ice cream social and learn more about Social Security as we celebrated its 90th year financially assisting Americans.

In 2025, Social Security is facing challenges to its future. If you draw Social Security and use those dollars—which YOU EARNED—here are some facts you need to know.

• Retired workers make up 73.2% of Social Security recipients in Indiana. That’s 1,040,309 people.
• Disabled workers account for 12.7% of recipients or 179,875 people.
• Spousal and survivor benefits go to 7.9% of beneficiaries, totaling 111,921 persons.
• Children make up 6.3% of beneficiaries or 89,556 of our young residents.

That’s a lot of people and the economic benefit of Social Security amounts to $30.2 billion going yearly to Hoosiers for their living expenses. Among those, 373,000 residents who are 65 and older have been lifted out of poverty.

Now you’re not going to get rich if you live solely on Social Security. The state average monthly benefit for retired workers is $1,966 ($1,905 nationally). For disabled workers, the monthly average benefit is $1,530, seven dollars less than the national average for that same demographic.

These statistics come from www.AARP.org/social-security where you can get more information. You can also read about Social Security in AARP publications.

So what’s ahead for Social Security?

In the next 10 years, Social Security could face a reduction in benefits as more people retire and draw on the fund. People in lower income brackets will face the most dramatic results of this with many falling into poverty. At this point in time, those in upper income tax brackets do not pay Social Security taxes on 100% of their taxable income. Thus they are better able to diversify their retirement funds and this will have less impact on their retirement monies.

Women, in particular, will face a major impact as their salaries are usually lower than men’s salaries and thus they are able to save less over their work lives for retirement and have lower Social Security benefits.

But this is not all doom and gloom. There is time to make changes to the current system so that the trust fund does not run out of money. You’ll be hearing more about this as time goes on and we encourage you to stay abreast of the news about Social Security and to voice your opinions and your “real life” experiences with retirement income to your elected officials.

Finally, a HUGE SHOUT OUT to Rusty’s Ice Cream, Fort Wayne’s exclusive ice cream time machine! Not only is the décor a throwback to the 80s, but the ice cream treats returned us to some favorite novelties of years past.