Benefits paid under the Railroad Retirement and Railroad Unemployment Insurance Acts totaled almost $12.3 billion in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015. Retirement and survivor benefits were paid by the RRB to about 558,000 beneficiaries during the fiscal year, of whom 525,000 were on the RRB's annuity rolls at the end of the year. Approximately 25,000 railroad employees were paid unemployment and/or sickness insurance benefits. Almost 2,000 beneficiaries received payments under both the Railroad Retirement Act and the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act.
Retirement and survivor benefit payments of $12.2 billion during fiscal year 2015 were $277.6 million more than payments in the prior year. Employee and spouse annuitants were paid some $10.0 billion, accounting for 82 percent of the total payments. Employees received almost $7.1 billion in age annuities (including $1.2 billion to annuitants full retirement age and over originally awarded a disability annuity) $1.2 billion in disability annuities and $61.1 million in supplemental annuities, while spouses and divorced spouses received almost $1.7 billion. Survivors were paid $2.2 billion in annuities and some $3.0 million in lump-sum benefits. The total number of beneficiaries who received retirement and survivor benefits declined by about 4,000 from fiscal year 2014.
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Note: Statistics are presented on the cash basis of accounting instead of the accrual basis of accounting for much of the Report. However, with the exception of the first paragraph below, the Federal Income Tax Transfers section/table in A Review of Operations, which are also presented as cash, the information under Financial Reports in The Report in Brief, and in both the Railroad Retirement and Survivor Program and the Railroad Unemployment and Sickness Insurance Program financial operations sections of A Review of Operations is presented on the accrual basis of accounting. The primary difference between the two bases of accounting is that the cash basis recognizes revenue and expenditures only when cash is received and paid. The accrual basis, on the other hand, recognizes revenue when it is earned and expenses when they are incurred.
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1 In the Annual Reports for the years through 2014, annuitants who were full retirement age and over and who were originally awarded a disability annuity were included in the disability counts. Effective with this report, annuitants full retirement age and over originally awarded a disability annuity are included in the employee age and service counts because a disability annuity converts to an age and service annuity when the annuitant attains full retirement age.
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Gross unemployment and sickness benefits paid in fiscal year 2015 totaled about $104.1 million. Net benefits totaled nearly $83.2 million after adjustment for recoveries of benefit payments, including injury settlements, some of which were made in prior years. Total gross benefit payments decreased by approximately $2.1 million while net benefit payments decreased by some $1.2 million from the preceding year. In accordance with the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, as amended by the Budget Control Act of 2011, amounts reflect a sequestration reduction of 9.2 percent for days of unemployment and sickness after February 28, 2013, 7.2 percent for days after September 30, 2013, and 7.3 percent for days after September 30, 2014.
Gross unemployment benefits decreased by some 10 percent compared to the previous year. Unemployment benefits were at non-recessionary levels due to the phase-out of temporary extended benefits. Gross unemployment benefits totaling $36.7 million ($34.0 million net), including $0.3 million net in temporary extended benefits under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009, as amended by the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011, the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, were paid to 9,200 claimants, while gross sickness benefits of $67.4 million ($49.2 million net) were paid to 16,000 claimants.