Jonathan M. Stein and Chi-Ser Tran have written a piece for Common Dreams giving a strong argument for updating Supplemental Security Income.
I think there's good reason for hope that the budget reconciliation bill the Senate will consider later this year will contain positive SSI provisions, although probably not all that's really needed.
22 comments:
Wonder if those 8 of 10 that support SSI reform support paying higher taxes to do such. Not from the rich but across the board tax increase.
The 1/3 reduction to SSI is because the recipient is not paying his or her fair share of rent/utilities/food/etc. One can argue that it's not a good policy but there is a bit of fairness to paying more to those who have to support themselves completely vs those who say are living with family and not paying their share of the household expenses.
You're making an assumption here. As someone who waited for years for SSDI while on a disability pension that paid between these 2 amounts.... Even at FULL SSI, you can't realistically pay your "fair share." So, the government is saying, "If you live with a relative, it's going to cost you." Plus, you won't be able to get any rent subsidies. While this may work for rich people and some middle class, it puts more of a burden on poorer people. As someone in that position, I can assure you that the recipients feel that burden. If your already struggling with mental health issues, this policy just increases it. How much money does it really save? I think it is a horrible idea based upon a faulty concept. Why discriminate?
No need for higher taxes, there are plenty of things in the US budget that wouldn't even know what a 100 million reduction was. But sure, I'd pay more to improve the quality of life. Speaking of the 1/3 reduction in isolation is why things don't get better. The FBR rate is below the poverty level. Throwing 1/3 reduction on that pushes it to 1/2 the poverty level. So it's a catch 22, not enough to live on your own to start with means 1/3 reduction is for many automatic, further keeping them from being able to live on their own and pay their share.
So until the FBR is at least at poverty level, the argument that the 1/3 reduction is fair is simply a thumb in the eye of the aged, blind and disabled ppulation since it's almost impossible to live on your own or pay your share with the current full FBR.
If you want to do away with the 1/3 reduction in FBR for people who don't pay their fair share, how about doing away w/ SSI for children completely as far as a monetary benefit? Disability generally is paid to replace earnings. Children in the US don't usually support themselves. So why pay whatever the kid rate is to someone who would not have income if they were not disabled? Give them medicaid, food stamps and pay the parents IHSS if necessary, but it never made sense to pay kids money for not working. If monetary benefits were done away with and social programs were increased for cases that needed them, you'd see a sharp drop in children's cases for ADHD, etc. There is NO incentive for these kids on SSI to become healthy. If they do manage to function so they don't qualify for SSI, the parents lose money. If no money, there is no reason to try to draw out the kids disability until they hit 18 when they are going to be thrown off anyway. Not all kids are on for ADHD and similar maladies but the ones that are would be better helped if programs were in place to help them function better and do better at school vs giving their parents money.
The rationale is that usually at least one parent needs to sacrifice their careers to tend to their disabled children. Furthermore, often these children live in a single parent household. The SSIDC helps replace a fraction of that parent's lost wages. Without those benefits the family would be down and out.
@850 AM--the rationale is that one parent may have to sacrifice their career but if the child needs a lot of care at home the parent can apply for IHSS and be paid to give that care. Why pay for a sacrificed career when the child has a learning disability and is in school all year as with those that have ADHD? For severely disabled children, IHSS pays much more than SSI could ever think of paying.
@11:33
SSA regularly ignores SSI recipients' who are paying their "fair share" of rent/utilities/food/etc, presuming they aren't.
Your claim is ignorant of reality. Also, presuming the SSI recipient goes and lives alone, assuming there is family involved, they are going to help in other ways. All the reduction does is subsidize the program and billing friends and family 1/3 the SSI recipient's benefits, directly or indirectly.
@2:46
SSI was created to stop people from being left to die when they didn't have earnings to qualify them for DIB. Common examples were housewives and those disabled from birth. Your objection is with the concept of SSI in general, not merely children.
Also, given child benefits terminate at 18 and you need to reapply, failure to follow prescribed treatment, or lack of evidence of impairment due to a lack of engaging in treatment, is going to preclude benefits.
But lets say the child doesn't improve by 18; the incentive then is you are reminded monthly that you are worth about one-fourth of what is needed to survive in most states, you are reminded monthly that you cannot increase your assets to a degree that would cover about 1/20 of a medical emergency; etc.
I will not hide behind anonymity to make this comment --
A lot of hate towards SSI recipients.
A bit horrifying but not altogether surprising.
A few "things" to remember.
Full SSI is 75% of poverty.
Resource limit is $2k.
ISM is a disaster to administer.
SSI is tiny compared to T. II
Disability is tiny compared to Retirement.
Have some compassion for folks who are:
Disabled; elderly; indigent.
John S. Whitelaw
Advocacy Director
Community Legal Aid Society, Inc.
100 W. 10th Street
Suite 801
Wilmington, DE 19801
302-575-0660, ext. 215
302-575-0663
Fax 302-575-0840
Pronouns: he/him/his
@330 PM Not sure how you see others as hating SSI beneficiaries from what is posted here. Every govt program has rules that are to be enforced. Could SSI be much less complicated? Certainly. But let's be frank--it's a welfare program that used to be run by the states for the blind, disabled and elderly. In order to make sure the most needy are helped, some people who are not one of the three categories aren't going to be helped.
Raising and caring for a disabled child is very expensive. For example a 2 parent family, one working, the other caring for the child probably needs two cars, one to take to work, one to take the child to appointments.
They may need special foods, equipment, extra bedding, and on and on.
That check usually isn't just for whatever the parents want.
I work in a low income area and SSI is not much less than the average disability benefit or the average retirement benefit taken at 62. That may be surprising to some but it’s the truth. When you work in a high poverty area, you see how SSI keeps people poor. Families have multiple children on SSI, and then when they turn 18 and no longer qualify, the mother who hasn’t worked the last 15-20 years now has no work record of her own and usually files for SSI because her retirement is next to nothing. It’s a perpetual disaster!!!
Agree about raising the resource limit. I have especially had clients be disqualified based on their spouse. Not sure what the amount should be but maybe $5,000 to $10,000.
Not sure I agree with raising the monthly amount too much. It should be fairly low compared to SSD recipients. In California, SSI is about $943 per month to start but does get reduced easily. But also some claimants get to keep their food stamps at about $100-200 per month.
It seems like most SSD claimants probably get between $1000-2000 per month. So this is what should be raised first. They put into the program the most theoretically.
So here we are again saying people on welfare should have more resources in the bank than a family that is working. That is a REALLY hard sell to working people. $10000/$794 = 12.59 months of benefits. So you want to tell working people, many who do not have enough saved to handle a $500 car repair, that a person on welfare can save OVER 1 year of benefits and still get welfare. I know a lot of working people that do not have a year of salary in the bank.
A couple of things:
1. The $3000 limit for a family was set in 1989. Inflation-adjusted, it should be at least $6500 in 2021. Not adjusting the resource limit on an annual basis is punitive by the very nature of the policy.
2. Who cares what working class folks think? Many are lacking in the critical thinking department and fail to realize that increasing the resource cap could lead to SSI transforming into a stepping stone towards financial independence.
Ultimately, raising the resource limit will be a tiny drop in the Federal budget bucket, so why not give it a shot?
Because working class people are paying the tax that supports this welfare program.
There are currently over 100 million people living below this threshold in the U.S.—one in three people. While a large number of that 100 million living at or below 200 percent of the poverty line are children and seniors, over 12 million of them are full-time workers between the ages of 25 and 64.
So yeah, lets make SSI more than people that work.
If you want a universal income program get a universal income program and quit trying to make SSI a universal income program.
@9:37
You’re delusional if you think increasing the resource limit would help get people “off” the program. If that were the case, Republicans would be all over it!
Besides, like Charles keeps saying, people on disability through Social Security are too sick to work so trying to do anything to encourage them to get back in the work force is futile. People who qualify for SSI as adults generally do not have a work record to speak of…that’s why they’re applying for SSI.
Just yesterday I took a claim for a guy who was 38. He literally said to me, “I love to work, I’ve always worked so this is new for me”. Really? Your work record says the opposite. So did his prison record which basically explained his lack of work. He’d been incarcerated most of his adult life for various offenses.
So if you want to raise the resource limit of get rid of ISM or whatever other changes to make the program more “friendly” fo for it. I have no issue with changes that would make it less of an incentive to lie.
Yeah, and they will benefit from it if they need it in the future.
@ 2:46
You seem to miss the point about child SSI. Not sure it was ever meant to replace some potential earnings from the child. It is basically there to help those parents dealing with disabled children. But remember, the parents have to be extremely poor to qualify for child SSI.
I have many struggling parents who need help but they would not qualify for child SSI. They get penalized because they make just a little too much money. The SSI amount helps for many time-consuming activities, such as attending IEPs in special education, doctor's appointments, therapists appointments, etc.
It is helping those parents with disabled children. And those parents might have to support them for their child's life unless they can get on SSI or disabled adult children benefits.
@10:30
What are you going on about? SSI beneficiaries are not a threat to receive as much as people who work. And your number thrown out to lump so many in the 200% of the poverty line is suspect. Huge difference between the current for SSI beneficiaries at 75% at the most, and 200%.
Some of you guys also seem to think getting the paltry benefits is some cakewalk. For most, it definitely is not.
None of the fiscal conservatives have that much to dread. Full SSI reform is dead in the water. Not enough political will to spend 500 billion over a decade for just that.
The hope for me, is a small increase in baseline benefits and a small adjustment on earned and unearned penalties.
Here are my tips to help the government save money on SSI:
* eliminate disability reviews for SSI recipients with a lifelong disability. Cognitive impairment, quadriplegia, Down syndrome, these are not medical conditions that go away. In addition, hinging all of the available services on eligibility to SSI means that losing eligibility will likely result in reversing any economic gains that miraculously occurred despite all odds.
* don’t require additional medical evidence (paying to send people to more doctors) to determine disability for a person disabled from birth, with school records indicating at or below elementary levels in reading and math, lifelong special ed, etc.
* stop spending time looking to eliminate the most needy people from receiving benefits. And if you insist on doing that, work to remove the linkage that ties eligibility to much needed services. Frankly, some SSI recipients only apply for SSI in order to get access to the services.
Quit with the attitude that “lazy lowlifes” are out to scam the system. Considering how badly the USA deals with supporting people with mental illness, just let it go!
Post a Comment