What Sources of Income Do People Rely On?

New Interactive Data Tool Shows Sources of Personal Income for Hundreds of Economic and Demographic Combinations

April 02, 2025

Written by:

Michael D. King and Zach Scherer

What share of older adults’ income comes from social insurance programs, such as Social Security? How does the share of income from earnings differ between men and women with similar levels of education? How do income sources change with age for adults with disabilities?

A new U.S. Census Bureau data tool breaks down the source of personal income for different population groups and socioeconomic characteristics.

Users can select from hundreds of demographic and economic characteristic combinations to explore the make-up of the total income different groups receive.

For example, income from government transfer programs on average accounted for only 2% of total income among U.S. adults ages 18 and older in 2022.

Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the tool provides information on the average share of personal income in 2021 and 2022 from:

Earnings, including wages and salary, business earnings and other employment-based income.
Asset income, including income-earning assets, stocks and mutual funds, and other assets.
Social insurance income, including Workers’ Compensation, unemployment insurance and Social Security.
Government transfer income, including Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and General Assistance (GA).
Other income, including retirement income, disability and survivor benefits.

For all components other than earnings, the tool also displays information on a more detailed set of sources (for example, the share of social insurance income from Social Security).

We calculated the share of each individual’s total income from each of the five income categories and averaged those shares for all individuals with a given set of characteristics.

Users can select from hundreds of demographic and economic characteristic combinations to explore the make-up of the total income different groups receive.

How Sources of Income Varied in 2022

Government transfer income:

Even for those with income below 50% of their poverty threshold, government transfer income averaged less than one-fifth of total income received.
Most transfer income (about 80%) came from the SSI program, a means-tested cash-assistance program for select people with disabilities and older adults with limited resources.

Sex and educational attainment:

Among those with less than a high school degree, women received 35% of their income from earnings, compared to 56% for men.
Women and men with advanced degrees both received 68% of total income from earnings.

Disability status:

Adults with disabilities derived a smaller share of their income from earnings than adults without disabilities across all age groups.
The share of income from earnings among working-age adults with disabilities declined steeply with age, from 71% among those ages 18 to 29 to 42% among those ages 50 to 64.

Older adults:

Among all races, those ages 65 to 74 received half of their income from social insurance, primarily Social Security.
Among the oldest age category (75 and over), the share of income (about 70%) from social insurance was highest among Black individuals and those of Some Other Race.

Improving Accessibility of Economic Well-Being Data

This new tool highlights the detailed sources of income and sociodemographic information collected in the SIPP and how they can be combined to better understand income dynamics.

It joins other data tools such as Who Is Receiving Social Safety Net Benefits? and How Do Policies and Expenses Affect Poverty? designed to improve access to Census Bureau economic well-being data.

SIPP is a nationally representative longitudinal survey administered by the Census Bureau that provides comprehensive information on the dynamics of income, employment, household composition and government program participation.

More information on social safety net programs from the SIPP is available in fact sheets, detailed program participation tables and reports.

The SIPP Technical Documentation includes information on confidentiality protection, methodology, sampling and nonsampling error and definitions. The Source and Accuracy Statements contain information about calculating measures of statistical uncertainty. Unless otherwise noted, all comparative statements have undergone statistical testing and are statistically significant at the 90% confidence level.

Michael D. King is chief of the Income Statistics Branch in the Census Bureau’s Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division.

Zach Scherer is a statistician in the Census Bureau’s Program Participation and Income Transfers Branch.

Related Statistics

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