As we celebrate National Disability Employment Awareness Month and think about its theme, Access to Good Jobs for All, it's important to also recognize a significant milestone this year: the 50th anniversary of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments, which have long supported people with disabilities in their pursuit of stability and independence. Over the past five decades, SSI has been a lifeline to many people with disabilities, including the roughly four million working-age beneficiaries today. For many people receiving SSI, these payments represent the bulk of their household’s income, helping reduce poverty among beneficiaries and their families. SSI’s role as an anti-poverty program should not be understated.
Working-age SSI beneficiaries, by definition, have significant disabilities and limited work histories. They have conditions (persistent or episodic) that limit their ability to sustain full-time employment, but that does not mean that they are uninterested in paid work. In fact, more than 40 percent of federal disability program participants report having work-related goals and expectations, and about an equal share have worked at some point in the last few years.
As we consider opportunities to make good jobs available for people with disabilities, we must also recognize that SSI beneficiaries considering employment face complex choices about how much to work and the types of benefit programs they can participate in. SSI’s $943 maximum monthly federal benefit payment, which is just 75 percent of the federal poverty level, is reduced by $1 for every $2 of earnings after some modest adjustments. Although the Social Security Administration excludes the first $65 earnings before applying the 50 percent benefit offset, that $65 monthly value has not been updated in decades. Because of inflation, this “tax rate” on earnings affects these workers, people already struggling to make ends meet, more today than when these rules were established.
Moreover, the asset limits for SSI, which also haven’t substantially changed in decades, severely restrict beneficiaries’ ability to save if they do start to work. Currently, a single beneficiary is ineligible for SSI if their assets exceed $2,000 (and couples cannot exceed $3,000). These limits are among the strictest used by any federal assistance program. The low asset limit prohibits people receiving SSI from saving for unexpected expenses and participating in employer-sponsored retirement accounts such as 401(k) plans without jeopardizing their SSI benefits. Even saving enough to afford car repairs needed to get to work might mean losing SSI payments. There are a number of work incentives and programs available to help beneficiaries save and work, but they are often not well understood.
The Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Martin O’Malley, agrees that the SSI program needs updating. Under O’Malley’s direction, the agency has made recent changes designed to improve the experience of beneficiaries in receiving timely and accurate benefits, both when they first apply for benefits and once they receive them. The agency also continues to support existing programs such as Ticket to Work, which offers employment services and benefits counseling to disability beneficiaries interested in work or already working—and who want to know how their benefits might be affected by earnings.
Congress must act to modernize the SSI program; the Social Security Administration cannot change the SSI program rules that might make it more challenging for beneficiaries who want to pursue good jobs and secure their own financial independence. For example, increasing or eliminating the asset limit—either one time or with future increases indexed to inflation—requires a statutory change. Congress has shown a willingness to increase the asset limit; it took action in 2014 with the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act, introducing accounts that allow people with severe functional limitations that began before age 26 to save money in a tax-advantaged account to fund disability-related expenses without losing eligibility for certain means-tested public benefits programs. In 2022, Congress passed another act that will increase the age of eligibility for an ABLE account to 46 starting in January 2026. Additional action to change asset limits would allow more workers with disabilities to participate in employer-sponsored retirement programs and save earnings to cover life’s emergencies. The SSI program has also received increased Congressional attention this year, which will—we hope—result in changes that allow SSI beneficiaries to achieve a better standard of living.
Beyond reforms like increasing financial eligibility criteria to match today’s cost of living, other changes to the SSI program that would allow beneficiaries to test their ability to sustain work will require that Congress has evidence to guide its decisions. Some evidence could be drawn from earlier tests of a range of incentives from the Social Security Administration program, including those specific to SSI and other programs such as Social Security Disability Insurance. As the number of people with disabilities who are interested in pursuing employment continues to grow, it is time to make evidence-based reforms to the SSI program so that it can continue to support people with disabilities and allow them the opportunity to access good jobs and seek independence.
On October 8, Mathematica’s Center for Studying Disability Policy and the National Academy of Social Insurance will host a webinar to discuss the state of SSI today, reforms that could improve the experiences of beneficiaries over its next 50 years, and new evidence needed to propose such changes. After National Disability Employment Awareness Month comes to a close, researchers will continue to shed light on how a modernized SSI program can better support people with disabilities in achieving the lives they want, including through employment. Next month, the Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management will convene its fall research conference from November 21 to 23 and bring together many of the country’s SSI-focused researchers for a discussion about the next 50 years of SSI.
Researchers will support evidence generation to aid in meaningful reform, but, as policymakers debate changes to the SSI program, it will be critical to incorporate the voices and experiences of SSI beneficiaries themselves. Their experiences with the SSI program—positive and negative—can shape the ways that the program can continue its critical role in the social safety net and make it easier for SSI beneficiaries to work and save like other Americans.
