Bluegrass Times

There were 72,967 OASDI widow and parent beneficiaries in Kentucky in 2020, ranking it 20th in the United States, 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	359,873
2	Texas	314,588
3	Florida	267,598
4	New York	203,428
5	Pennsylvania	177,327
6	Ohio	170,895
7	Illinois	140,438
8	Michigan	135,797
9	North Carolina	115,589
10	Georgia	111,918
11	Tennessee	92,931
12	Virginia	91,690
13	New Jersey	90,535
14	Indiana	85,074
15	Louisiana	81,058
16	Missouri	78,494
17	Arizona	78,396
18	Alabama	76,766
19	Washington	74,341
20	Kentucky	72,967
21	South Carolina	66,989
22	Wisconsin	65,964
23	Massachusetts	64,784
24	Maryland	54,909
25	Oklahoma	54,360
26	Minnesota	53,387
27	Colorado	50,037
28	Oregon	48,776
29	Mississippi	44,889
30	Arkansas	43,819
31	West Virginia	39,960
32	Iowa	38,907
33	Connecticut	35,653
34	Kansas	32,911
35	Nevada	29,437
36	New Mexico	26,473
37	Utah	23,686
38	Nebraska	20,539
39	Idaho	19,932
40	Maine	18,862
41	New Hampshire	14,622
42	Hawaii	14,502
43	Montana	13,749
44	Delaware	11,556
45	Rhode Island	10,907
46	South Dakota	10,541
47	North Dakota	9,333
48	Vermont	7,681
49	Wyoming	6,640
50	Alaska	5,439
51	District of Columbia	3,818