In Marshall County, 8.9 Percent of All Income Comes From Social Security

10/31/11 If Marshall County residents didn’t receive their monthly payments from the Social Security Administration, 8.9 percent of total personal income in the county would be lost, a total of $120,099,857 in 2009. Marshall County is more dependent on Social Security payments than is the rest of the country. Nationally, 5.5 percent of total personal income in 2009 came from Social Security payments. In Indiana, 7.1 percent of all income comes from these payments. In Marshall County, 8,850 people receive some form of Social Security payment, either an old age pension, a survivor benefit or a disability check, according to the Social Security Administration and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Social Security beneficiaries represent 18.9 percent of the total county population. In rural counties and counties such as Marshall with smaller cities, Social Security payments constitute a much larger chunk of the local economy than in urban areas. A greater percentage of people in rural America receive these payments than in urban counties, and so rural counties have higher average payments per resident. “In many rural places, Social Security is a very critical element of the local economic base,” said Peter Nelson, a geographer at Middlebury College in Vermont. “It’s [...]