SSAB Produces Issue Brief On SSI

The Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) has issued its Issue Brief #4 entitled, "Need For Review of the Supplemental Security Income Program’s Benefit Levels, Asset Limits, and Income Exclusions."

Here is the report's bottom line:

Our specific recommendations are, as part of a comprehensive legislative review of the SSI program:
• The Congress should consider how equivalence scales could be applied to the SSI benefit structure. Those scales should be applied to households regardless of the marital status of the members of the households.
• Research should be conducted to develop equivalence scales that would reflect the additional needs of beneficiaries with disabilities.
• Income exclusions and asset limits should be re-examined to ensure that they still serve the purposes for which they were developed.

Calling merely for a "re-examination" of the SSI income exclusions and asset limits is hardly a bold step since the income exclusions and asset limits are absurdly out of date. I suppose we should be happy to get even such a hedged recommendation.

I do not see the idea of treating unmarried people living together as if they were married as realistic. It would be unenforceable. Is Social Security going to have police checking to see if someone is staying in your home or apartment with you? Many years ago that was how the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program worked, but that was scrapped because it was unworkable.