As Supplemental Security Income turns 50, some call for changes to the program's outdated benefits

A cardinal national programme providing benefits to elderly, unsighted and disabled radical — Supplemental Security Income — is turning 50 years old.

The program, which presently serves astir 8 cardinal beneficiaries, was created by authorities signed by President Richard Nixon connected Oct. 30, 1972.

But adjacent arsenic Supplemental Security Income — called SSI for abbreviated — provides important income for adults and children with disabilities and aged individuals, its benefits and requirements person gone decades without large updates.

"As we people 50 years of this bedrock program, it's a bittersweet day to observe due to the fact that SSI has been near to wither connected the vine for astir arsenic agelong arsenic it's been around," Rebecca Vallas, elder chap and co-director of The Century Foundation's Disability Economic Justice Collaborative, said during a caller webinar hosted by the progressive deliberation tank.

What's more, SSI's eligibility criteria "have go extraordinarily restrictive, punitive, counterproductive and adjacent outright inhumane," Vallas said.

The outdated rules person caught the attention of definite Washington policymakers.

"We cognize that Washington neglected this programme for excessively long," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said during the webcast. "We cognize however overmuch needs to beryllium done to bring SSI into the 21st century."

Supplemental Security Income benefits were designed for radical who are "subject to large inequities and sizeable reddish portion inherent successful the contiguous system," Nixon said astatine the signing of the 1972 legislation.

The archetypal benefits were sent successful 1974. The mean outgo was $117 per month.

Today, the size of the payments is simply a maximum of $841 per period for individuals and $1,261 for joined couples. A record 8.7% cost-of-living adjustment for 2023 volition propulsion those totals up to $914 per period for individuals and $1,371 for couples.

Still, experts were hard-pressed to springiness the programme a passing people during the Century Foundation's caller webcast, due to the fact that astir fractional of beneficiaries unrecorded successful poverty, portion cardinal rules for the programme person remained unchanged for decades.

That includes a $2,000 plus bounds for individuals ($3,000 for couples) that has not been updated since the 1980s. The regularisation applies to assets held successful slope accounts oregon anyplace else. Consequently, the program's beneficiaries tin person "basically nary savings" successful bid to support their eligibility, according to Kathleen Romig, manager of Social Security and disablement argumentation astatine the Center connected Budget and Policy Priorities.

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Other outdated rules besides clasp the program's beneficiaries back, experts say.

Those covered nether the programme are constricted to however overmuch income they tin earn. The first $65 earned successful a period does not count. However, for each $2 earned implicit that threshold, SSI benefits are reduced by $1.

There besides is simply a matrimony punishment for couples including 2 SSI beneficiaries. Together, they person little wealth per period than if they claimed individually. Moreover, their plus bounds is $3,000, compared to the $2,000 each if they claimed individually.

In addition, beneficiaries are constricted to however overmuch assistance they tin judge from friends oregon family, including groceries oregon shelter.

The rules are not lone burdensome for individuals and families who trust connected the program, but besides costly for the Social Security Administration to manage.

SSI represents astir 80% of the administrative costs for the Social Security Administration, owed successful portion to the means investigating the programme requires, noted Will Raderman, employment argumentation expert astatine the Niskanen Center.

That's contempt the information the colonisation served by Social Security is 8 times the size of SSI. (To beryllium sure, immoderate beneficiaries person some Social Security and SSI, though their benefits are reduced for doing so.)

Some lawmakers connected Capitol Hill are making a bipartisan propulsion to update the plus limits. A bipartisan measure — the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act — seeks to rise the plus limits to $10,000 for individuals and $20,000 for couples, and besides scale them to inflation.

The connection enactment guardant by Brown and chap Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican, marks the archetypal bipartisan measure to update the programme successful much than 30 years.

The alteration would marque it truthful beneficiaries tin prevention wealth successful lawsuit of an unforeseen car repair, aesculapian measure oregon different unforeseen expenses.

It would beryllium 1 measurement toward updating the program, which besides has a agelong exertion process and outdated income requirements that marque the programme "unnecessarily and unfairly difficult," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., seat of the Senate Finance Committee.

"We cognize our enactment is acold from over," Wyden said.

For Dyveke Cox of Martinsville, Indiana, whose 21-year-old girl relies connected SSI, the alteration would beryllium "definitely an improvement."

"For us, the plus limits are the biggest hurdle oregon changeless conflict we person with the program," Cox said.

In the agrarian country wherever they live, $2,000 doesn't permission capable country to person a reliable car and savings successful the bank, she said. The rules besides bash not assistance her tendency to thatch her girl to beryllium financially responsible.

"No genitor is going to archer their child, 'If you've got [$2,000] successful the bank, you're bully to go,'" Cox said.