South Africa paid 26.6 million social grants last year, including the Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress grant. That is equal to about 41% of the population, up from about 25% when the South African Social Security Agency, SASSA, began operating in 2006 and paid around 12 million grants.

The figures come from a GroundUp series looking back at 20 years of SASSA, with charts by The Outlier.

The biggest jump came during the pandemic. The SRD grant, now worth R370 a month, was introduced for people with no income and added about eight million people to the system. It was meant to be temporary, but has been extended repeatedly, most recently until March 2028. Total recipients peaked at nearly 29 million in 2021/22.

Leaving out the SRD grant, regular grants have grown from about 12 million in 2006/07 to 18.8 million in 2025/26. Most of those are child support grants, which rose from 7.9 million to about 12.6 million children over the same period, and old-age grants, which nearly doubled from 2.2 million to 4.2 million.

One of the fastest periods of growth was between 2009 and 2012, when the child support grant was extended to older children. Spending has grown with the numbers but has stayed at just over 11% of total government spending.

The trend may now be turning, though. Regular grant numbers fell 2.2% in 2025/26, from about 19.3 million to 18.8 million, mostly in child support and foster care grants. In last month's medium-term budget, Treasury projected a further fall from 17.8 million in 2026/27 to 17.1 million by 2029/30, and expects stronger checks against bank and government records to save R13.1 billion over three years. Treasury says the aim is to catch grants approved incorrectly or fraudulently, not to cut off people who still qualify.

Separately, Cabinet sent back a proposed Basic Income Support policy for unemployed working-age adults, asking for stronger links between income support and job opportunities. The Department of Social Development aims to return it by March 2027.

Moneyweb republished the analysis by Marecia Damons, first published by GroundUp. Moneyweb has separately reported that SASSA will spend R290 billion on social grants this year, and that billions have been saved as grant fraud falls.

Most people know South Africa pays a lot of social grants. Fewer know the scale: four in ten South Africans now receive one, most of them children and pensioners. Grants keep millions of households afloat, and grant paydays drive a large share of spending at shops, spaza stores and the informal traders that companies like Pepkor and Shoprite are competing to serve.

But the number that matters most for the country's future is not how many grants are paid; it is how many people have work. The SRD grant has grown because jobs have not, and even Cabinet is now asking for income support to be tied to employment. That is where business comes in.

Every company that grows and hires, every founder who turns a side project into payroll, does more to bring that 41% down than any change to the grant system can. With the budget already stretched, as the rating agencies keep reminding us, a growing private sector is the only sustainable way forward.

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