Cuts to SSI Threaten Our Nation’s Most Vulnerable Senior Citizens and People with Disabilities
April, 2005
From: Eileen Sweeney and Marty Ford (CCD)
Like Medicaid, SSI also is in serious jeopardy in the budget bill conference negotiations. That paper is now posted on the CCD website.
If anything, the picture has gotten worse in the last week. For the first time, we know for sure that there are conversations about cutting SSI as part of budget reconciliation. And, yesterday, the Hill news services reported that the budget conferees are trying to agree upon $43 billion in cuts in mandatory spending programs - this would mean that substantial cuts would have to come from Medicaid, SSI, EITC and other programs important to people with disabilities and their families.
The attached article provides information about the importance of SSI to the children and adults who receive SSI. Please use this to contact your membership/grassroots. Urge them to contact their Members of Congress, especially Senators, directly. Urge Senators and Representatives tell their leaders to stick with the Senate budget bill (which has no cuts in SSI, Medicaid or the EITC) and reject House cuts in order to protect key programs for people with disabilities like SSI and Medicaid.
Action alerts will be posted to the action centers on the websites of The Arc and United Cerebral Palsy. Use these to create your own web-based alerts or feel free to go to those sites directly.
Cuts in SSI are likely to means greater costs falling upon state and local governments as people lose their SSI and Medicaid and turn to local governments to try to make ends meet. In addition, already-stretched private organizations such as charities, soup kitchens, and shelters for people who are homeless will find there are more people who need their help. Please share this alert and the attached memo with these officials and organizations and urge them to contact your members of Congress as well.
Time is of the essence - these decisions are being made now and over the next week - so please act early and often! Many thanks!
Proposed and signed into law by President Nixon, the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program was “designed to provide a positive assurance that the Nation’s aged, blind, and disabled people would no longer have to subsist on below poverty-level incomes.” In 2005, the Bush Administration described the program’s accomplishments this way:
By any measure, the SSI program has been extremely successful over its 30 years of operation. … For the low-income aged, blind, or disabled individuals, SSI is truly the program of last resort and is the safety net that protects them from impoverishment. 2004 SSI Annual Report, Social Security Administration
Despite a record of accomplishment, the SSI program could be a target for significant cuts this year. This could push millions of vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities deeper into poverty.
House budget threatens SSI: The House Budget Resolution would require the Ways and Means Committee, which oversees the SSI program, to cut a total of $18.7 billion from the programs under its jurisdiction. SSI is one of the largest programs under the Committee’s jurisdiction and is likely to absorb a significant share of any required cuts. The Senate Budget does not require cuts in this part of the budget. House and Senate leaders are meeting this week to work out a compromise between these two positions.
SSI cuts mean less help for vulnerable elderly individuals and people with disabilities: There are two ways to cut the SSI program — reduce the level of benefits that individuals receive or terminate assistance to subgroups of recipients. If significant cuts are to be made in SSI, some poor elderly individuals or people with disabilities will lose assistance entirely, or a larger group will lose part of their assistance.
It is unclear how large the SSI cuts under consideration would be. If SSI is cut by $1 billion in 2006 and the cuts are achieved by terminating all assistance to some recipients, some 188,000 individuals would have to be cut off from the program. (Larger cuts would mean more people would lose basic income assistance.) Even a cut of $500 million in 2006 would mean that some 94,000 individuals with disabilities or seniors would have to be terminated.
SSI provides critical income assistance to 7 million of the most vulnerable Americans — the elderly and people with serious disabilities. Only those living well below the poverty line qualify for assistance. The amount they receive, while vital, is not large — the monthly benefit for an individual living alone is just $579, 25 percent below the poverty line.
SSI keeps the elderly and people with disabilities from destitution. While SSI benefits alone are not enough to lift individuals and couples above the poverty line, SSI benefits do reduce the extent and depth of poverty. Some families are lifted out of poverty when SSI is combined with other benefits such as food stamps and the earnings or other income of other family members. In 2002, more than 2.1 million people lived in families whose disposable income was lifted above the poverty line by SSI. This includes 427,000 children and 462,000 seniors. SSI lessens the severity of poverty for millions more. Poor families that include an SSI recipient typically have incomes equal to about three-quarters of the poverty line — without SSI, the families’ incomes would have been just one-third of the poverty line.
SSI supplements Social Security benefits. Many Social Security beneficiaries have income and resources low enough to also qualify for SSI. These individuals receive a modest amount from SSI that supplements their Social Security benefits. In December 2003, more than one-third of SSI recipients overall also received Social Security, and more than one-half of SSI aged 65 or over receive Social Security benefits.
SSI helps individuals with disabilities who work. In 2003, more than 323,000 SSI beneficiaries with disabilities or blindness were employed. SSI does not tax benefits dollar-for-dollar when recipients work, but instead reduces benefits by 50 cents for every dollar earned, providing a modest work incentive.
SSI eligibility qualifies persons with disabilities and the elderly for Medicaid. Many persons with disabilities and elderly people who are low-income also qualify for Medicaid to cover their medical expenses. If SSI recipients lose their SSI benefits as a result of cuts made in a budget reconciliation bill, they also could lose Medicaid. Cuts in SSI could increase the number of people who are uninsured for medical care.
SSI is the safety net for the “oldest old.” More than six in ten aged recipients are over the age of 75 and more than one-third are over the age of 80.
In 1996, deep cuts were made to the SSI program. These changes tightened the disability requirements that children must meet to receive SSI income assistance and severely restricted access to the program for poor legal immigrants.
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