If you invested every Social Security check for 10 years, how rich would you be?

A common criticism of Social Security is that Americans would be much better off financially if the money they contribute to the retirement program through payroll taxes were invested in private investment accounts. The same argument can be applied to Social Security checks: Seniors would have much more wealth if they invested their checks as soon as they received them.

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But is this a reasonable request for most people, especially those on a fixed income? To help you find the answer, here’s a closer look at how much you could earn by investing your Social Security checks over a decade.

For those seniors who can afford to invest all of their Social Security checks, the potential reward is considerable. The table below shows how much profit you would have made if you had invested every Social Security check over the past 10 years in the S&P 500, from 2015 to 2025 until now.

The data includes the average Social Security check per year, as GOBankingRates previously reported. Also includes the average annual return of the S&P 500 from 2015 to 2025, as cited by Macrotrends (other sources may reflect different returns).

A couple of things to keep in mind: The figures below are based on annual averages only, which means they do not include the monthly fluctuations that occur in the stock market. They also do not include other types of investments, such as cryptocurrencies or real estate, which would have produced very different returns.

According to the table above, if you had invested all of your monthly Social Security checks in the S&P 500 over the past decade, your savings would have increased by more than $20,000.

That kind of return should cheer financial gurus like Dave Ramsey, who recommend claiming Social Security retirement benefits as soon as possible. For example, you could start collecting benefits at age 62 instead of the full retirement age of 66 or 67 and then immediately invest each monthly payment.

There’s just one problem with that reasoning. A large percentage of seniors do not have the financial ability to invest their Social Security checks in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, real estate, cryptocurrencies or other investments. They need the money to pay the bills.

For about half of American seniors, Social Security provides at least 50% of their total retirement income, according to research from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. For about every four seniors, Social Security provides at least 90% of their income. These people find it difficult enough to make ends meet, let alone invest their Social Security checks in various investments that may or may not pay off.

However, for retirees who can afford to invest their benefit checks, there’s a good chance those investments will pay off and grow their retirement savings in the long run.

Vance Cariaga contributed to this article.

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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: If You Invested Every Social Security Check for 10 Years, How Rich Would You Be?