Federal benefits for aged, blind and disabled Americans have not been updated in years.
Now, some lawmakers and advocates are pushing for changes to the program — called Supplemental Security Income, or SSI — to be part of legislation being promoted in Congress.
However, it is still unclear whether that will happen.
Proposed SSI reforms were not included in an initial budget proposal by House Democrats.
Yet this week a Senate Finance subcommittee held the first hearing on the program since 1998, a sign that Senate leadership, particularly Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., plan to keep fighting for it.
The hearing was led by Brown, who in June reintroduced the Supplemental Security Income Restoration Act.
But hopes to get sweeping SSI reform included in the package could be dashed as lawmakers work to whittle the total cost of the Build Back Better package down from $3.5 trillion.
However, there could be room for more incremental changes to the program, which largely hasn’t been touched since 1972.
“The Senate should take the opportunity to add some of these important SSI improvements into the Build Back Better legislation, even if the package cannot accommodate the full SSI Restoration Act,” Kathleen Romig, senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said during testimony at the hearing.
The SSI Restoration Act would freshen the program’s rules, many of which have been in effect for years and are outdated, advocates argue.
SSI provides monthly benefit checks to Americans who have little or no income and are aged, blind or disabled. The money supports basic needs, such as food, clothing and shelter.
About 8 million people — including adults, children with disabilities and seniors — receive the benefits.
Some lawmakers and advocates say the program’s benefits are outdated and saddled with unfair rules.
The average monthly SSI payment is around $586, according to the Social Security Administration. The maximum benefit is $794 per month, which is 75% of the federal poverty level.
In addition, there are strict asset limits, whereby a single beneficiary can have up to $2,000 in savings. That has not changed since 1989.
Beneficiaries also face strict income limits. If they work, they can only keep up to $65 of their earnings each month. Earnings above that threshold reduce benefits by $1 for every $2 in income.
While SSI beneficiaries can collect other benefits, including Social Security, they can only keep $20 per month. If the benefits exceed that amount, their SSI benefits are reduced dollar for dollar.
SSI benefits were dubbed the “forgotten safety net” during a 1987 House Ways and Means hearing, Brown said at the Senate subcommittee hearing this week.
“It was a fitting title then and it would be an even more fitting title now, given the decades of neglect that has hurt millions of Americans,” Brown said.
The SSI Restoration Act Brown has proposed would increase SSI benefits by 31% and bring them up to the federal poverty level. It would also index those benefits to inflation.
The proposal would also increase the asset caps to $10,000 per individual and $20,000 per couple, up from $2,000 and $3,000, respectively.
In addition, beneficiaries would be allowed to earn up to $399 through work, and also take in up to $123 per month through other sources like Social Security or veterans benefits, among other changes.
An analysis from the Urban Institute found that proposed changes would help lift about 3.3 million people out of poverty, and cut the poverty rate among SSI recipients by more than half.
Those changes also come with higher costs. The Social Security Administration has estimated the proposal would increase SSI payments by about $510 billion from 2022 to 2030.
