Just curious, where did you get that figure?
I am one who has paid into Social Security for my entire working lifetime, and maxed out each and every year since 1960.
I reached my full retirement age in the middle of 2007 and started collecting benefits. So, I sould be among the best funded participants in the system. Still, I will have collected all the contributions of myself and my employer plus interest, by the time I am 72 1/2.
Now, I assume that most SS participants will reach full payout a bit faster than me.
In my case, time to payout break-even is about 5.5 years, but my understanding is that for most it is closer to four years. That means that most people currently 69/70 years old have already recieved in benefits all their contributions, their employer’s contributions, and interest and are into the dessert portion.
My figure of “probably” 75 percent is just a wild-*ssed guess on my part of the proportion of SS benefit recipients older than 70 years. I think it could be MORE than 75%, but I don’t have the figures to back that up.
I am confident of the core truth of what I am saying.