Factsheet on Social Security

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Here's one of the facts:

Fact #10: Social Security is an extremely efficient program, with administrative costs equaling only 0.6 percent of retirement and survivors benefits.

Administrative costs account for only 0.6 percent of total Social Security retirement and survivors benefit payments. According to the most optimistic estimates, even private accounts plans with very limited choices and services would have administrative costs more than ten times as high. The Office of the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration generally assumes that with private accounts that offer limited choices and services, administrative costs would ultimately consume about 0.3 percent of account assets each year. At that rate, administrative expenses would ultimately eat up about 7 percent of a worker's retirement benefit, more than ten times as much as the administrative costs under the current Social Security system.