Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is often confused with Social Security. Although both programs are administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA), and both programs provide Americans with cash from the federal government, that is where their similarity ends.
According to the SSA, the main differences between SSI and Social Security are:
- Social Security benefits may be paid to you and certain members of your family if you are “insured,” meaning you worked long enough and paid Social Security taxes. Unlike Social Security benefits, SSI is not based on your prior work or a family member’s prior work.
- SSI is financed by general funds of the U.S. Treasury — personal income taxes, corporate taxes, and other taxes. Social Security taxes collected under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) or the Self-Employment Contributions Act (SECA) do not fund the SSI program.
- In most states, SSI recipients can also get medical assistance (Medicaid) to pay for hospital stays, doctor bills, prescription drugs, and other health costs.
- Many states also provide a supplemental payment to certain SSI recipients.
- SSI recipients may also be eligible for food assistance. In some states, an application for SSI also serves as an application for food assistance.
SSI pays monthly benefits to people with limited income and resources who are blind, age 65 or older, or have a qualifying disability. Children with disabilities or who are blind may also get SSI.
Not all income is not counted toward eligibility for SSI, for example, the value of welfare received and the first $65 of earnings and one half of earnings over $65 received in a month. Benefits are reduced by $1 for every $2 one earns over $65.
Nor are all personal resources counted toward eligibility for SSI, for example, your house, household goods, personal effects, and one vehicle. Otherwise, the limit for countable resources is $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple.
Effective January 1, 2024, the maximum federal benefit rate is $943 for an individual and $1,415 for a married couple. The average actual SSI payment is about $700. Over 7.4 million Americans receive SSI benefits, with about a third of them over 65. If you are homeless or living in a public shelter, you can still receive SSI. You don’t even need an address—the SSA “will make arrangements to pay you.”
SSI beneficiaries received two payments last month, and will again in September and December. SSI payments are usually made on the first of each month. However, when the payment date falls on a weekend or holiday, the payment is issued on the last day of the previous month; hence the two payments.
The SSA has published some final rules, to begin on September 30, 2024, that will allow more people to qualify for SSI payments and give some beneficiaries a higher monthly payment. The rules include: (1) Omitting Food from In-Kind Support and Maintenance (ISM) Calculations, (2) Expansion of the Rental Subsidy Policy for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Applicants and Recipients, and (3) Expand the Definition of a Public Assistance Household.
The SSA estimates that adopting the first rule alone will increase outlays for SSI benefits by $1.6 billion over the next 10 years and reduce the agency’s administrative costs by $26 million over the same period.
According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) analysis of the third rule, the changes will increase SSI payments by a total of $15 billion over the next 10 years. Eventually, “277,000 SSI recipients will receive increased payments, while another 109,000 individuals will be added to the benefit rolls.”
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.
In this case, the real money comes from U.S. taxpayers. And it is not just for SSI. There are in the United States about 80 means-tested welfare programs that determine benefits or payments on the basis of the beneficiary’s income or assets, and these programs cost over $1 trillion annually.
A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon, you’re bankrupt.
This is why the national debt is fast approaching $35 trillion.
But as important as it is, the cost of the SSI program is not the real issue. And neither is the waste and fraud in the program.
The real issue is this: The Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to have an SSI program or to take money from some Americans and give it to other Americans.
It is an illegitimate purpose of government to have a safety net, welfare programs, or income transfer programs even if they help the disabled, the sick, the poor, or the blind.
No American should receive higher SSI payments. The SSI program should not be expanded to provide more payments to more people. No one should receive two SSI payments, or even one. The provision of welfare, whatever it is called and whatever form it takes, is neither a constitutional nor legitimate function of government. There are no exceptions.
Although Republicans in Congress may complain about the Biden administration’s expansion of the SSI program, they have never made any attempt to eliminate or even scale back the program when they had control of the government and could have done something, anything, to stop taking from money from some Americans and giving it to other Americans.