Prairie State Wire

In 2021, Illinois had 136,968 OASDI widow and parent beneficiaries, ranking it the seventh highest in the United States by number of beneficiaries, according to the Social Security Administration.

The Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) is a program of the Social Security Administration funded primarily through payroll taxes. It was signed into law in 1935 by then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The OASDI program aims to supplement a worker’s lost wages due to retirement, disability or death of a spouse.

The following table shows states ranked by number of widow and parent beneficiaries.

Rank	State	Number of Widow and Parent Beneficiaries
1	California	357,843
2	Texas	314,188
3	Florida	267,242
4	New York	199,852
5	Pennsylvania	172,163
6	Ohio	166,308
7	Illinois	136,968
8	Michigan	132,812
9	North Carolina	114,752
10	Georgia	110,983
11	Tennessee	92,126
12	Virginia	90,389
13	New Jersey	89,029
14	Indiana	83,681
15	Louisiana	79,729
16	Arizona	78,274
17	Missouri	77,123
18	Alabama	75,339
19	Washington	73,354
20	Kentucky	71,665
21	South Carolina	66,880
22	Wisconsin	64,405
23	Massachusetts	63,458
24	Maryland	53,947
25	Oklahoma	53,832
26	Minnesota	52,033
27	Colorado	49,249
28	Oregon	47,848
29	Mississippi	44,189
30	Arkansas	43,154
31	West Virginia	38,978
32	Iowa	37,818
33	Connecticut	35,113
34	Kansas	32,493
35	Nevada	29,419
36	New Mexico	26,166
37	Utah	23,881
38	Nebraska	20,123
39	Idaho	19,823
40	Maine	18,496
41	New Hampshire	14,450
42	Hawaii	14,341
43	Montana	13,671
44	Delaware	11,562
45	Rhode Island	10,659
46	South Dakota	10,256
47	North Dakota	9,092
48	Vermont	7,474
49	Wyoming	6,622
50	Alaska	5,416
51	District of Columbia	3,677