Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
49 free Social Security trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Every trivia fact about Social Security seems to come with a twist: the first payout was 17 cents, the first monthly check went to a Vermont legal secretary who paid in $24.75 and drew out nearly $23,000, and a sample card in a Woolworth wallet became the most misused number in history. This quiz collects fifty of them. It covers the 1935 Social Security Act and Frances Perkins, the Townsend Plan that pushed Roosevelt to act, the Supreme Court cases that upheld the program, Medicare's 1965 arrival, the Greenspan Commission and the 1983 retirement-age changes, how benefits are calculated, payroll tax rates, COLAs and the trust funds. Useful for civics classes, retirement seminars and anyone curious about where the FICA line on a pay stub goes.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year did President Franklin D. Roosevelt sign the Social Security Act?
1935
The 37-page act, signed on August 14, bundled old-age insurance with unemployment insurance and aid to dependent children.
Q 02What does the acronym OASDI, the formal name of Social Security, stand for?
Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance
The original 1935 program was just Old Age Insurance; survivors were added in 1939 and disability in the 1950s.
Q 03Who received the very first Social Security payout, a lump sum of 17 cents, in January 1937?
Ernest Ackerman
Early one-time payouts went to workers who retired before monthly benefits began in 1940.
Q 04How much was the first monthly Social Security check, issued to Ida May Fuller in 1940?
$22.54
Check number 00-000-001 was dated January 31, 1940; she went on to collect more than $22,000 over 35 years.
Q 05Ida May Fuller, the first recurring beneficiary, came from which state?
Vermont
A Ludlow schoolteacher turned legal secretary, she went to school with Calvin Coolidge at Black River Academy.
Q 06How much had Ida May Fuller paid in Social Security taxes before her benefits began?
$24.75
She worked under the system for just under three years, from spring 1937 to November 1939.
Q 07Roughly how much did Ida May Fuller collect in benefits over her retirement?
About $22,900
She lived to 100, and often received the first check after each benefit increase, once with a letter from Lyndon Johnson.
Q 08Which Secretary of Labor led the committee that designed Social Security for Roosevelt?
Frances Perkins
Perkins, the first woman in a presidential cabinet, was asked at a Senate hearing whether the plan was 'a teeny-weeny bit of Socialism'.
Q 09The Townsend Plan of 1933 proposed paying every American over 60 how much per month?
$200
Dr Francis Townsend's letter to the Long Beach Press-Telegram required recipients to stop working and spend it all within the month.
Q 10What was Francis Townsend's profession before he launched his pension movement?
Physician
Roosevelt liked the plan's logic of shrinking the labour supply and boosting demand, but wanted a more comprehensive version.
Q 11Which two big job categories were left out of the original 1935 Social Security coverage?
Agricultural and domestic workers
Government employees and many teachers, nurses and librarians were also excluded; 65% of the Black workforce fell outside the program.
Q 12Which 1937 Supreme Court case upheld Social Security as spending for the general welfare?
Helvering v. Davis
The 7 to 2 decision found the old-age program did not violate the Tenth Amendment.
Q 13Flemming v. Nestor (1960) established that contributors have no what?
Contractual right to benefits
Q 21Before 1946 the agency went by what name?
Social Security Board
The three-member board created in 1935 started with no budget, no staff and no furniture.
Q 22Who served as the first Commissioner for Social Security, from 1946 to 1953?
Arthur Altmeyer
He had chaired the Social Security Board since 1937 and is sometimes called 'Mr. Social Security'.
Q 23Robert M. Ball served as Commissioner of Social Security under which three presidents?
Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon
He held the post from 1962 to 1973 and later sat on the Greenspan Commission.
Ephram Nestor, a Bulgarian who paid in for 19 years, lost his benefits after being deported; the Court rejected 'accrued property rights'.
Q 14How many digits does a Social Security number have?
Nine
The format AAA-GG-SSSS once encoded a geographic area number, a group number and a serial number.
Q 15Who was announced as the holder of the first Social Security number in history, in December 1936?
John David Sweeney Jr.
Joseph Fay of the SSA pulled his record from the top of the first stack of 1,000 as a publicity stunt.
Q 16The most misused Social Security number ever, 078-05-1120, came from a sample card sold where?
In wallets at Woolworth
A wallet maker used its secretary Hilda Whitcher's real number on display cards; over 40,000 people later claimed it as their own.
Q 17In June 2011 the SSA made what change to how numbers are assigned?
Randomized them
The first three digits no longer signal where a card was issued, and area numbers 000, 666 and 900 to 999 are still never used.
Q 18Which three-digit area number, along with 000 and 900-999, is never assigned?
666
Some Christians with religious objections to 666 can also request a different number.
Q 19Which federal agency helped distribute the first applications and mail out cards in 1936?
The Post Office
More than 1,000 post offices served as 'typing centers' and over twenty million cards were issued.
Q 20The Social Security Administration is headquartered in which Maryland community?
Woodlawn
Known as Central Office, it sits just west of Baltimore; the agency runs the largest government program in the country.
Q 24In what year were spouses and minor children of retired workers added as beneficiaries?
1939
The 1939 amendments turned a retirement program into a family one, a year before the first monthly checks.
Q 25Disability benefits were added to Social Security under which president, in 1956?
Eisenhower
Payments for permanently disabled workers over 50 began in July 1957; the age limit was dropped in 1960.
Q 26Early retirement at a reduced benefit became available at what age in 1961?
62
That early-claiming age has never changed, even as the full retirement age rose to 66 and 67.
Q 27Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law in 1965 at whose presidential library?
Harry Truman's
Truman and his wife Bess became the program's first two enrollees; twenty million joined in three years.
Q 28Which Medicare component covers hospital, skilled nursing and hospice services?
Part A
Part B is outpatient care, Part D is prescription drugs and Part C is the private Medicare Advantage route.
Q 29Supplemental Security Income (SSI) was created by amendments passed in which year?
1972
It grew out of Richard Nixon's welfare reform push and began operating in 1974, replacing patchy state programs.
Q 30Automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments were mandated starting in what year?
1975
Before that, COLAs came at irregular intervals, including a 77% jump in 1950.