8 Types of Americans Who Aren’t Eligible to Get Social Security

Does everyone get Social Security? No. Still, American workers who will not qualify for Social Security retirement benefits are relatively rare. If you are one of them, it’s important to know, so you can secure other sources of income or determine whether it’s possible for you to become eligible. What follows are the eight most common categories of workers who lack Social Security eligibility and are thus not entitled to benefits.

1. Workers With Too Few Social Security Credits

Can you get Social Security if you never worked? No, because a minimum requirement to collect Social Security retirement benefits is performing enough work. The Social Security Administration (SSA) defines “enough work” as earning 40 Social Security credits. More specifically, in 2021 an individual receives one credit for each $1,470 in income, and they can earn a maximum of four credits per year. So 40 credits are roughly equal to 10 years of work.

If you earn the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, you’ll need 202.75 hours of work to receive one credit toward Social Security. By working just 17 hours a week for 50 weeks at this wage (allowing yourself a two-week vacation), you can earn the maximum credits per year. That means even those who work part time so they can attend school or care for a child—or those who work part time because they cannot find full-time work—can amass Social Security credits without too much trouble.

Earned credits never expire, so anyone who has left the workforce with close to 40 credits might consider going back and doing the minimum additional work they need to qualify. You can check the number of credits you have so far by opening a my Social Security account on the Social Security website and downloading your Social Security Statement.

2. Workers Who Die Before Age 62

The minimum age to start claiming Social Security retirement benefits is 62. If someone dies young, dependent children and spouses may be entitled to survivor benefits. At age 60, for example, widows and widowers can begin receiving Social Security benefits based on their deceased spouse’s earnings record (disabled spouses can start at age 50). Terminally ill patients can apply for Social Security Disability Income (SSDI), which means they will still receive some benefit from their contributions to the system.

What if you are terminally ill and have reached the minimum retirement age? If you are single, claiming right away may be the most sensible strategy. However, if you have a spouse, postponing may provide your spouse with greater benefits, according to advice from Laurence Kotlikoff of the PBS News Hour.

3. Certain Divorced Spouses

Divorced people can be entitled to half of an ex’s Social Security benefits. Usually, these are full-time homemakers or stay-at-home parents who didn’t work. To get the benefits they must be single, age 62 or older, and and have earned less in benefits based on their own work record than based on their ex. However, if the marriage lasted for fewer than 10 years, they are not eligible to claim any spousal benefits.

4. Workers Who Retire in Certain Foreign Countries

U.S. citizens who travel to—or live in—most foreign countries after they retire usually can receive Social Security benefits. However, if that country is Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, North Korea, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan, the government will not send them Social Security payments. Exceptions may be available in all of these countries except Cuba and North Korea. Use the government’s Payments Abroad Screening Tool to see if you will be able to continue receiving Social Security benefits while living abroad.

5. Certain Legal Immigrants

Legal immigrants who have earned 40 Social Security work credits in the United States are eligible to receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. Immigrants who do not have enough U.S. credits but who come from one of the 26 countries with whom the United States has social security agreements, also known as “totalization agreements,” can qualify to receive prorated benefits.

These benefits are based on their work credits earned abroad combined with their U.S. work credits, an arrangement that is particularly helpful for older immigrants who are not likely to accumulate 10 years of work in the United States before retiring. Workers who have not earned at least six U.S. credits, however, cannot receive payments under totalization agreements.

6. Certain Government Employees

There are some jobs that don’t pay into Social Security. Federal government employees hired before 1984 may be grandfathered into the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), which provides retirement, disability, and survivor benefits. These workers do not have Social Security taxes deducted from their paychecks and so are not eligible to receive Social Security benefits. They may still qualify if they have earned benefits through another job or a spouse; however, in these cases CSRS pension payments may reduce Social Security payouts. Government workers who are covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), which replaced CSRS, are eligible for Social Security benefits. 

Most state and local employees have Social Security protection under a federal Section 218 agreement. However, some of these workers—including those who work for a public school system, college, or university—will not receive Social Security benefits if they do not pay Social Security taxes. They generally receive pension benefits from their employers.

7. Self-Employed Tax Evaders

Self-employed workers pay self-employment tax to cover both their own and the employer’s portion of Social Security contributions. The tax is calculated and paid each year when these workers file their federal tax returns. Those who do not file tax returns do not pay Social Security taxes, unlike employees whose employers withhold and remit their Social Security taxes from each paycheck.

If you have no record of paying into the system, you are not going to receive payouts. However, if you have not reported income and successfully evaded taxes for a lifetime, you have no right to Social Security benefits anyway. Your illegally retained untaxed earnings will have to fund your retirement.

8. Certain Immigrants Over Age 65

Retired people who immigrate to the United States will not have the 40 U.S. work credits they need to qualify for Social Security benefits. One way to rectify this problem is to earn six work credits in the United States and receive prorated U.S. benefits combined with prorated benefits from their former country under a totalization agreement. This solution makes sense for workers who also do not have enough benefits in their home country to qualify for that country’s equivalent of Social Security payments.

Older immigrants who do not qualify for U.S. Social Security and whose countries’ laws allow them to receive benefit payments while residing abroad can claim their social security or pensioner’s benefits while living in the U.S.

The Bottom Line

Almost all retirees in the United States do receive Social Security benefits when they stop working—assuming they’ve reached retirement age, of course. However, those who have spent little time in the U.S. workforce, whether due to full-time homemaking or working abroad, may not qualify under their own names. (Some could qualify for spousal benefits, if their spouse qualifies for payments.) Some government workers are also not eligible. Fortunately, some people who do not currently qualify can still find a way to do so.