It appears that the federal government is preparing to bestow another pittance upon disabled people who receive Social Security Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
In February, the Social Security Administration (SSA) published in the Federal Register a proposed rule change that would “remove food from the calculation of In-Kind Support and Maintenance” for SSI recipients.
Here’s what that means: The largest monthly SSI amount anybody can receive is $941. But it’s not wise for anyone who rakes in that much to go on a wild spending spree. The Social Security Administration can reduce that amount by subtracting your In-Kind Support and Maintenance, which are resources a person gets from someone else that aren’t money but have a monetary value. That includes food. So if you give somebody living on SSI a bag of groceries, or if an SSI recipient lives with you but you don’t charge them for food or rent, they can be docked up to 33 percent of their monthly allotment for that.
I have two reactions to changing this outdated, draconian measure: A) Good, it’s about time, and B) Big deal.
Don’t think for a minute that SSA wouldn’t be so petty as to actually enforce this rule. According to what was published in the Federal Register, of the 7.3 million people who received SSI in January 2022, 790,000 of them were hit with one of these in-kind reductions.
I have two reactions to changing this outdated, draconian measure: A) Good, it’s about time, and B) Big deal.
So potentially taking food out of the equation is good, but let’s get rid of the very notion of in-kind SSI reductions while we’re at it. That silly logic implies that $941 or less per month is enough to get by fine and that any extra help is gravy.
Congress had an opportunity to make a more substantial change in the antiquated rules that keep SSI recipients forever trapped in deep poverty. Individuals getting SSI can’t have more than $2000 in savings and married couples who both get SSI can’t have more than $3000. Those asset limits haven’t changed since 1989.
In the last Congress, Senators Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, and Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio (who did not run for re-election in 2022), introduced a bill to raise those limits to $10,000 for an individual and $20,000 for a couple.
Brown had sought to make more changes than that. In 2021, he introduced legislation that also called for substantially raising the maximum monthly amount for people getting SSI, raising the income they can take in from working and other sources before they start getting docked, and more. He gave up on everything but raising the savings limit in order to win over his lone Republican co-sponsor. And the bill still didn’t pass!
So, the only positive change any SSI recipients are likely to see anytime in the foreseeable future is this exceedingly meager one. It’s the only idea that survives from the list of things Brown tried to do. And even this won’t happen quickly. The proposal is open for comment until April 16 and then all comments must be reviewed before any action can be taken.
It shows how the majority of Congress feels about people who need SSI.