Eligibility Requirements for SSI Recipients
A number of requirements must be met in order to get financial benefits from Supplemental Security Income. First, a person must meet the program criteria for age, blindness, or disability. The aged, or elderly, are persons sixty-five years and older. To be considered legally blind, a person must have vision of 20/200 or less in the better eye with the use of corrective lenses, have tunnel vision of 20 degrees or less (can only see a small area straight ahead), or have met state qualifications for the earlier Aid to the Blind program.
A person is disabled if he or she cannot earn money at a job because of a physical or mental illness or injury that may cause his or her death, or if the condition lasts for twelve months or longer. Those who met earlier state Aid to the Permanently Disabled requirements may also qualify for assistance.
Children under age eighteen (or twenty-two if a full-time student) and unmarried may qualify for SSI if they have a medically determinable physical or mental impairment that substantially reduces their ability to function independently as well as effectively engage in "age-appropriate" activities. This impairment must be expected to last for a continuous period of more than twelve months or to result in death.
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA; PL 104-193) abolished Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), but it did not eliminate SSI. However, the welfare reform law prohibited all noncitizens from receiving SSI, with the exception of veterans and those who have worked for ten years and paid Social Security. It also made it harder for disabled children under eighteen to get SSI. To be eligible, a disabled child must have "marked and severe functional limitations."
Because SSI is a means-tested benefit, a person's income and property must be counted before he or she can receive benefits. Table 8.1 shows the maximum income that an individual and couple can have, with some income exclusions, and still be eligible for SSI benefits in 2003. For example, the monetary limits placed on individuals and couples receiving Social Security benefits are $572 and $849 per month respectively. In addition, in 2003 a person could have no more than $2,000 worth of property, and a couple could have no more than $3,000 worth of property (mainly in savings accounts or stocks and bonds). Not included in countable resources are the person's home, as well as household goods and personal effects worth less than $2,000. The first $4,500 of the fair market value of a car is not counted. A car is not counted
TABLE 8.1
Maximum income for eligibility for federal Supplemental Security Income benefits, 2003 Receiving only Social Security Receiving only wage income Monthly Annually Monthly Annually
| Receiving only Social Security | Receiving only wage income | |||
| Monthly | Annually | Monthly | Annually | |
| Individual | $572 | $6,864 | $1,189 | $14,268 |
| Couple | 849 | 10,188 | 1,743 | 22,916 |
| SOURCE: "Table 3-2. Maximum Income for Eligibility for Federal SSI Benefits, 2003," in The Green Book U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, 2003 [Online] http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/greenbook2003/Section3.pdf [accessed January 28, 2004] | ||||
at all if a member of the household uses it to go to and from work or to medical treatments or if it has been adapted for a disabled person. Someone applying for SSI may have life insurance with a cash value of $1,500 or less and/or a burial policy up to the same value.
Recipients of SSI Benefits
Nearly 6.8 million persons received SSI payments in 2002, practically the same as the number of recipients in 1998. Of these, about 80 percent were disabled, 19 percent were elderly, and 1 percent were blind. (See Figure 8.1.) The majority of those receiving SSI were between the ages of eighteen and sixty-four (57 percent). Between 1974 and 2002 the number of elderly recipients declined from 61 percent to 29 percent of all recipients, while the number of disabled recipients increased. Table 8.2 shows the annual amount of payments by source of payment and category from 1974 through 2001. In 2000 the leading causes of disability among adults and children were mental disorders (not including mental retardation) and musculoskeletal system and connective tissue diseases.
About 50.2 percent of SSI recipients in 2001 were women, and 49.8 percent were men. (See Table 8.3.) According to the Social Security Administration, in 2002 58 percent of the 6.8 million recipients of SSI were women.
Cost of the SSI Program
According to the Social Security Administration, as of 2002 an individual SSI recipient could receive up to $545 per month in benefits from the federal government. If both people in a couple were eligible, the pair could receive up to $817. Most states supplement the amount provided by the Federal government.
The cost of the program rose from $11 billion in 1985 to $16.6 billion in 1990 and to $31 billion in 1999. Expenditures for the disabled, which rose from $7.8 million in 1985 to $15.7 million in 1999, accounted for most of the increase. Table 8.4 provides a breakdown of the number of persons receiving payments by source of payment and category from 1974 through 2001.
FIGURE 8.1
Distribution of Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries, by basis for eligibility and age, December 2002
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