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Supplemental Security Income turns 50 years old. How benefits might change
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A federal program for people with disabilities and the elderly has made its first benefit payments 50 years ago.
In 1974, Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, began sending the first monthly checks starting at about $140 per personor $210 per couple.
In 2024, the maximum monthly benefit It costs $943 for individuals and $1,415 for eligible couples. However, the average monthly benefit for individuals it is around US$698.
This is well below the federal poverty level, which in 2024 is about $1,255 per month per individual.
Experts say the program — with more than 7 million beneficiaries who must have little income or resources to qualify — could be updated to better fulfill its intended mission as a financial lifeline when former President Richard Nixon signed the program into law in 1972.
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SSI benefits come with strict restrictions. Income from work and other sources can reduce how much beneficiaries receive from the program. Additionally, they must remain under certain asset limits — $2,000 for individuals and $3,000 for couples — or risk suspension or termination of their benefits.
The rules are not only a burden on beneficiaries, but also on the Social Security Administration.
“For every person receiving SSI, it is only 4% of our total benefits that we distribute as an agency, but it represents 38% of our administrative expenses and workload,” said Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley at a conference of press. National Social Security Academy event last week in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the show’s anniversary.
Updates designed to improve access to benefits
The Social Security Administration is taking steps to try to reduce some of the restrictions that come with SSI benefits.
The agency announced that it will no longer count food as unearned income – formally known as in-kind support and maintenance, or ISM – which penalizes beneficiaries when the family offers them dinner, for example. It is also expanding the rent subsidy policy for SSI applicants and beneficiaries, as well as defining a public assistance family. These changes, which are expected to take effect September 30, should allow more people to access and qualify for SSI, O’Malley said.
Additionally, the agency has also made it easier for beneficiaries to request exemptions for undue paymentsor excess benefits they may have received. Also increased SSI underpayment limit to $15,000 of US$5,000, which helped resolve backlogged cases.
Congress can implement more changes
Congress may further improve the program through additional reforms.
By bringing the Social Security Administration operational overhead where it was a decade ago, the agency could work even harder to alleviate disability claim approval and telephone assistance wait times, according to O’Malley.
“It wouldn’t add a single penny to the federal debt, because you’ve already paid for it,” O’Malley said.
Additionally, experts say increasing SSI asset limits – which haven’t been increased in about 40 years – could help beneficiaries achieve better financial security.
Two bills in Congress have proposed significant SSI reforms.
Democrats have proposed Supplemental Security Income Restoration Actwhich calls for increasing the program’s asset limits, setting the minimum benefit at 100% of the federal poverty level, streamlining the claims process, and eliminating certain benefit reductions.
Another bipartisan proposal – the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act – would increase asset limits to $10,000 per individual and $20,000 per couple, up from $2,000 and $3,000, respectively. Consequently, it would eliminate the marriage penalty that current beneficiaries face.
“There is clear momentum behind the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act,” said Emerson Sprick, associate director of the Economic Policy Program at the Bipartisan Policy Center, at the NASI event.
The question is whether Congress can attach it to another legislative effort — perhaps related to spending — to get the proposed changes passed in the near future, he said.
Broader updates needed, advocates say
Advocates say further loosening of the program’s current rules would have dramatic positive effects.
Under current work limitations, SSI recipients may not be able to contribute to a 401(k) or get raises. Students may not be able to take a paid internship for fear that the income could affect their benefits, said Rylin Rodgers, a disability policy consultant at Microsoft.
“To have success, [we] We need workers with disabilities in all types of jobs,” Rodgers said.
“SSI, while critical, is at an influx point where, in some cases, it is creating a lock-in to that talent,” she said.
Individuals receiving Social Security and SSI benefits may see reductions in their payments. Loosening these rules would help lift more elderly and disabled people out of poverty, according to Wendell Primus, a visiting fellow at Brookings and former senior political adviser on health care and budget issues to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
SSI benefit amounts could also be increased more broadly for all beneficiaries, said Tracey Gronniger, managing director of the economic security team at Justice in Aging, an advocacy group to combat senior poverty.
“We need to significantly increase the level of benefits… at least up to the poverty rate,” Gronniger said.
The poverty rate can also be improved by helping increase SSI participation in underserved communities, especially for people of color, she said.
While recent updates to food and housing policies help, there is more room to update outdated policies that can interfere with access to benefits, said Jennifer Burdick, divisional supervising attorney for Philadelphia Community Legal Services’ SSI unit.
“It would be really great if Congress could just solve the biggest problems with the program so that we don’t have to look for other ways to try to find solutions to problems that Congress isn’t solving,” Burdick said.
Correction: Emerson Sprick is associate director of the Economic Policy Program at the Bipartisan Policy Center. An earlier version distorted part of its title.