Just went down a rabbit hole looking at retirement data and found something interesting about how many americans are relying on social security. Turns out it varies wildly by state. West Virginia's leading with over 41% of households depending on it, while Utah's at the low end around 24%. That's a massive gap.

What caught my eye is the regional pattern. The southeastern and northeastern states seem to have way higher dependency rates compared to western states. Maine, Hawaii, Florida all hovering around 37-38%. Meanwhile, Colorado and Texas are sitting around 25-26%. Makes sense when you think about cost of living and job markets in those regions.

The numbers are pretty wild when you look at total household counts too. California's got the most households on social security at nearly 3.8 million, but that's only 28% of their households. Meanwhile West Virginia's got less than 300k households but that's 41% of their population. Shows how the same program hits different communities in completely different ways. Interesting to see how many americans are actually depending on this versus what people assume.