From NPR:
After two months of sleeping in the Salvation Army Center of Hope homeless shelter in Charlotte, N.C., Margaret Davis has had no luck finding an apartment she can afford. ...
Davis is homeless even though she receives funds from the Supplemental Security Income program ...
Davis' job options are limited because she gets dialysis treatment three times a week for kidney failure. As she prepares to spend another night in the crowded shelter, she checks her phone to see whether a doctor wants her to have her left leg amputated.
"My therapist is trying to help me stay positive, but sometimes I just want to end this life and start over," Davis says. ...
Falling into homelessness is not a new issue for people dependent on supplemental income from the Social Security Administration. But moving recipients out of shelters, crime-ridden motels and tent encampments and into stable housing has been getting harder, according to academic researchers, nonprofit attorneys and advocates for people with disabilities. ...
Rapidly rising rents and inflation deserve a share of the blame.
But SSI recipients, activists and others say the issue also underscores for them how the program itself locks millions of people into housing instability and deep poverty even as President Biden promises to fix it. ...
The amount of money Davis says she gets each month from the program is about $60 more than the maximum amount offered 10 years ago, when she first started receiving the benefit. Yet the average apartment in Charlotte, where Davis lives, now rents for $1,500 a month — about 70% more than it did nearly a decade ago, according to Zumper, which has been tracking rental prices since 2014. ...
If a person applies for federal disability income, they can wait months or even years to get benefits. ...
The situation was made worse during the COVID-19 pandemic because the Social Security Administration closed more than 1,200 field offices across the nation and kept them shuttered for roughly two years.
That decision left hundreds of thousands of needy people unable to seek benefits, since phone lines were jammed with calls and the agency provides no way to submit applications online, says David Weaver, a former associate commissioner for research, demonstration, and employment support at the Social Security Administration.
"The number of SSI awards just collapsed," Weaver says. ...
Let’s look at the other side of the coin. Let’s remove SSI from the equation. So, if the program was nonexistent, how much income would she have to live on?
ReplyDeleteI agree SSI is a terrible program. I’ve worked in it for almost 20 years. It is a welfare program and like many other welfare programs, it is designed to keep you poor.
The SSI benefits has increased every year and at some point it’s going to average the same amount per month as the person who slaved away for 40 years at a low paying job.
SSI beneficiaries normally qualify for many other welfare programs such as food stamps and rental/utility assistance. Why doesn’t someone help her get those instead of complaining about what she already has?
"Why doesn’t someone help her get those instead of complaining about what she already has?"
ReplyDeleteI guess you aren't aware that in most places in the US, there is a 3 year waiting period for Section 8 or rental restricted income housing. I guess working in the "field" for 20 years made you unempathetic.
No, what’s made me “unempathetic” is the constant blaming of SSA.
DeleteThere are programs in place to help…correct? So instead of blaming the program that is actually helping, let’s put some heat on the other programs that aren’t!
Make it make sense.
What a bizarre, misguided and unhelpful thing to say! Why on earth are you assuming that no one is helping this person access additional resources? And why on earth do you believe that complaining about the problems with SSI is in any way inhibiting anyone’s ability to help her get food stamps and the like?
Delete@8:32/11:47
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of SSI is to "assure a minimum level of income for supplemental security income recipients who otherwise do not have sufficient income and resources to maintain a standard of living at the established Federal minimum income level." The current level does not just "keep you poor." SSI also is not supposed to equate to any particular PIA amount earned by a person working for 40 years at a low paying job; it's a totally separate program. To the extent you think it's unfair that SSI recipients could exceed a low-wage worker's benefits, neat, but the worker does not have to deal with the abusive rules applicable to SSI recipients.
Rental/utility assistance sounds neat. My state does surprisingly have those programs. All you need is at least 1 kid, and somehow be working full-time yet not earning more than %135 FPL, which actually is not objectively possible as a matter of math. Cause full time minimum wage will exceed that. Nobody is blaming SSA for the SSI amount, you claimed that out of nowhere. To the best of my knowledge, congress defined SSI's formula and it's clearly not serving the needs of the program in the modern world. Particularly the increase in housing and medical costs.
SSA should just give the SSI program back to the states who administer all of the other welfare programs. That way when someone qualifies for SSI, all of the other benefits like food assistance, rental and utility assistance and Medicaid can be packaged together.
DeleteSounds like a much better situation for all involved.
The average person receiving $750 from SSI is receiving more than they ever earned. Many somehow managed on no income many years until they became disabled.
ReplyDeleteSo should SSI be $2,000.00 per month?
ReplyDelete@5:26
ReplyDeleteIs $2000 a month necessary to maintain a standard of living at the federal poverty level? In more straightforward terms, does the average non-disabled individual existing at the federal poverty level receive approximately that amount in income?
Yes, it sounds like it needs to be!
Delete@2:53
ReplyDelete1. Plenty of SSI recipients have earned significant earnings, but their insured status lapsed. Or, plenty earned $750 a month prior to becoming disabled, but that's insufficient to establish insured status.
2. Yeah, they "managed" by either being homeless or relying on friends/family for shelter/food/etc. Which will still be anticipated by SSA, reducing their SSI benefits on the expectation that those same friends/family will continue to care for the SSI recipient.
@1137 AM. If they were insured and are no longer then they went some years with little or no earnings. Earning $750 per month is $9000 per year which would get one 4 quarters towards being insured.
ReplyDeleteMost didn't manage by being homeless. Some worked under the table in legal businesses and some did so in illegal type businesses. Some no doubt lived with family and friends.
I think you are a bit naive how resourceful some SSI applicants and recipients can be and have been.
I believe the SSI program was enacted decades after SSDI in recognition that many housewives never worked and thus had no SSDI. Times have changed, and the program needs to as well.
ReplyDelete@354 Nope. The feds took over state programs for poor aged, blind and disabled effective January 1974. Those on state aid were converted to SSI.
DeleteThat’s not why but it does need to change
DeleteSo now you want SSI people to get more money than the average worling person retirement beneft. SMH
ReplyDelete