Supplemental Security Income Program (SSI)

Supplemental Security Income is a program that was created in 1974 to help blind, aged and disabled people meet basic needs for food, clothing and shelter. The program provides income support to persons aged 65 or older, blind or disabled adults, and blind or disabled children. SSI benefit rate for an individual living in his or her own household and with no other countable income is $698 monthly; for a couple (with both husband and wife eligible), the SSI benefit rate is $1,048 monthly. Under SSI each eligible person is provided a monthly cash payment based on a statutory federal benefit rate. If an individual or couple is living in another person household and is receiving both food and shelter from the person in whose household they are living, the federal benefit rate is reduced by one-third. This is done instead of determining the actual dollar value of the in-kind support and maintenance. The very program that is supposed to be people’s safety net is actually the source of the problem, experts say. S.S.I. traps many disabled people by limiting their income to levels just above the poverty line, and taking away their cash benefits if they achieve any level of security. Some individuals might not be fully disabled and have the ability to work to earn income but every extra penny earned will be counted against their SSI benefits and will result in the benefit’s reduction. The problems stem from the Social Security Administration’s failure was to structure a program that motivates work. In cases where a disabled is being punished for receiving income that disqualified him or her from the SSI benefits or results in SSI income reduction will only discourage the individual to become inactive and not willing to work and end up fully depending on SSI income. It is relatively easy to accept cash benefits but very hard to get into the workplace. I disagree with such a discouraging system that has a long history of benefits. There needs to be solutions found to distance people from being lazy and fully depending on benefits or easy money from such programs. TheU.S. needs to be considerate of all kinds of health issues and disabilities and must assign every ill individual to a suitable job place in according to his or her disability. People must work to live and cannotdepend on other sources to receive monthly income because that money is being deducted from actively working individuals who are forced to pay taxes to be spent on such cases which I find to be unfair for many hard working individuals who either hold a college degree or just a high school graduate.I strongly suggest a work-first approach that would help people get job training or employment before they go through the process of getting on S.S.I. Now people must go through the lengthy process of proving that they cannot work before they are given access to job training and other programs.