The Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD), the major umbrella group of groups involved with helping the disabilities, has endorsed the Supplemental Security Income Restoration Act, which would update income and resources limits that have not been adjusted for inflation in almost 50 years. That bill can’t pass in the current Senate but next year, maybe.
12 comments:
The SSI resource limit is far too low. With a $2K resource limit SSI recipients are more vulnerable to getting stuck in situations that can prolong or worsen their disabilities. It also creates impediments to returning to work.
What is a "fair" amount for the resources to be?
@9:24
Enough for a reasonable rainy day fund for adverse events that SSI recipients are more likely to encounter. Some common scenarios: 1. Lost apartment, need security deposit, moving expenses, and first month's rent while still paying for other basic life needs. 2. Medical insurance balks or delays at providing critical medications, devices or services, and patient must pay for them while appealing or go without and get sicker (unfortunately too common). 3. The car used to go to the doctor, look for a job, and/or work needs major repairs which are not covered by insurance. Ballpark? I estimate at least $5K. I don't think it would cost the system much because not too many SSI recipients could save that much. However, the ones that did would have a better chance of avoiding homelessness and getting sicker.
Many SSI recipients live in fear that any adverse event, like the ones described above, will put them in an impossible situation considering the impossibility of having a reasonable rainy day fund under the current limits. I'd defer to mental health experts but that extra stress can only be harmful to people who already have serious medical conditions.
1:36 you do understand that more than 40% of working Americans do not have $5000 in savings and face the exact same scenarios, and they do it while working? So you want people with no work history to speak of, or a work history within the last decade to have more in savings than working people who do not qualify for all the benefits that go along with SSI approval. That is a reallllly hard sell.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/25/your-money/emergency-savings.html
2:19 It is precisely because disabled people do not have a regular paycheck to fall back on, that they need to be able to have a modicum of savings. One example is, they could save part of the retro dib check for the day when their clunker of a car needs to be replaced. Currently, they only have 9 months to spend down below the resource limit for SSI.
SSI recipients can also set up a PASS. Plan to Achieve Self Support.
PASS lets a disabled individual set aside money and things he or she owns to pay for items or services needed to achieve a specific work goal. The objective of the PASS is to help disabled individuals find employment that reduces or eliminates SSI.
Dear 2:19 Not all SSI recipient have no work history. Many State workers do not pay FICA taxes and are not eligible for DIB.
@2:19
Easy sell. Nobody is giving the SSI recipients $5K. It would just remove a penalty for them saving their own $5K. Non-SSI recipients don't have a penalty for their own rainy day funds, so they have no legitimate complaint.
@4:14
I love the idea of PASS plans. They help some people. Sadly, I have seen some people with disabilities trying to use it get tangled up in the program's red tape and become very badly discouraged.
This right here is the welfare mindset. That is all that has to be said.
@5:20 you are wrong by about 20 years.
@9:24
The SSI resource limit was $1,500 in 1974. SSI limits do not adjust for inflation, but if they did, it would be $7,849.02. That seems fair. Heck, half that would still be fair.
@2:19
The average American is capable of working to pay immediate needs, and while it is unfortunate that the average worker does not have significant savings, the difference here is that SSI recipients are significantly HARMED if they have significant savings whereas the average worker is not. Also, the SSI recipient, by definition, can't work to pay immediate needs. As to wanting SSI recipients to have more in savings than average, not particularly. I'd like them to have the ABILITY to have more savings than average without being harmed. That doesn't mean they will. This isn't an additional benefit, it is removing an old hardship.
I was an SSI CR for 30 years. Increasing the resource limit is overdue, no doubt as is the earned income exclusion. But in my observation, the vast majority of SSI recipients have zero money left at the end of the month so a few savers would and should benefit from this increase. But I think it would really help the naturalized elderly poor with high income adult children the most, since they don't really need the money they qualify for and are paid. There is one group of immigrants that have massive three day funerals and it is paid for with $100,000 insurance policies that are bought with SSI funds. Of course, what is not spent on the funeral goes into the adult kids pockets.
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