January 26, 2023

Middle Class Gets the Most from Medicare

This is a fact of retirement life: older Americans haven’t paid as much into Medicare and Medicaid as government spends on their healthcare and nursing home stays.

But it is middle-class retirees who get the most out of the system, according to a new study.

Middle-income households receive about $230,000 to $260,000 more in Medicare and Medicaid benefits, on average, during their retirement years than the total amount they’ve paid in. Their contributions consist of the Medicare payroll and income taxes deducted from workers’ paychecks, the portion of their federal and state income taxes devoted to Medicare and Medicaid, and the Medicare Part B and D premiums they are paying in retirement.

The net benefit of the programs to the middle class dwarfs the $153,000 in average net benefits for retired households in the top fifth of the lifetime earnings distribution, and it also exceeds the $196,000 gain for the bottom fifth.

The middle class is defined as the second, third, and fourth of the five earnings groups the researchers analyzed in this study. The annual data used to calculate the health spending and payment estimates for this analysis are adjusted for inflation.

Americans over 65 receive a third of all the medical care provided in this country. This new research, funded by the U.S. Social Security Administration, uses government administrative data to compare the benefits of Medicare and its smaller companion program, Medicaid, for each earnings group.

There are two reasons the middle class gets the most from the system. First, although the top earners live the longest and receive the most medical care, the middle class lives almost as long and ends up receiving a significant amount of care. …Learn More