Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a needs-based program for low-income seniors and disabled people. Because it is a needs-based program you have to show a lack of income and assets and must be either a certain age or disabled. Many people who have limited income and assets still don’t meet the technical requirements of the program because the resource limits of the program have not been updated in 30 years.
The basics of the resource limit are that “Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a needs-based program. To get SSI, your countable resources must not be worth more than $2,000 for an individual or $3,000 for a couple. We call this the resource limit. Countable resources are the things you own that count toward the resource limit.”
Each year things change with Social Security. Typically there are increases in benefits, different guidelines regarding income limitations, and other rule changes, but the limit on income and assets for SSI remain the same. The time has come to change that.
Established in 1974, the SSI program keeps a significant amount of people, although not enough, out of poverty. According to this research, “SSI alone is not enough to lift someone living independently out of poverty, it reduces the number of people in extreme poverty and greatly lessens the burden on other family members. In 2013, the poverty rate among recipients would have been 63 percent without SSI payments; the actual rate, including SSI, was 42 percent, an SSA study found.”
Because of SSI the poverty rate was reduced by 21 percentage points for those who collected the much needed benefit. After 30 years it is time to stop penalizing the poor for their limited assets. Congress can do this by updating the asset and income limits by indexing them for inflation like many other Social Security calculations.
