The Social Security Administration (SSA) recently made changes that could mean that some people in the United States will get more money from their Social Security income. This happened because the SSA recently changed the requirements for getting Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments, which led to this change.
The change is mostly about the SSA’s rental aid policy. The goal is to make it less likely that getting rental help will hurt a person’s ability to get SSI or the amount of their benefits.
SSI helps adults and children with disabilities or blindness by giving them monthly payouts. It also helps elderly adults aged 65 and up who don’t have a lot of money or resources. Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) payments may not fully cover the basic living costs of those who apply, let alone some of the more expensive side effects of a disability.
These payments are very important for many people who receive them. A new study from the Social Security Administration (SSA) says that as of January 2023, about 7.4 million people were getting SSI benefits, which are an average of $654 a month.
The effects of the Social Security expansion on SSI recipients
The SSA’s new policy on housing subsidies has already been put into place in seven states: Wisconsin, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Texas, and Vermont. These early rollouts happened because of decisions made by local courts, and they helped make it possible for a wider rollout across the country. I
t is planned that this policy will apply across the country to SSI users in all 50 states starting on September 30, 2018.
The new policy won’t change the SSA’s maximum monthly payment amount, which is $943 for 2024. However, it could increase the amounts that many current SSI recipients receive who don’t already apply for the maximum. It could also increase access, which would let more people get these important benefits. In a press statement on April 17, the SSA made this point very clear.
The SSA is dedicated to making sure that people who are eligible get the benefits they are due to. The commissioner of Social Security, Martin O’Malley, talked about how important the change to the rental subsidy was by saying, “Our mission is to continue to help people access important benefits, including SSI.”
Another sensible idea is to make our rental subsidy policy easier to understand and apply to more people across the country. This will make the program more fair and save the government time that would have been spent figuring out and managing rental subsidies.
This update to the rental aid comes after another recent change to SSI benefits. This shows that the SSA is still working to make the program easier to understand and more open to everyone. The SSA said in February that food would no longer be counted as In-Kind Support and Maintenance (ISM).
ISM used to look at informal food aid that a person applying for or getting SSI got from family, friends, or community support networks. The SSA said that applicants and receivers would have to file fewer reports because food would not be counted in ISM calculations.
This change is also meant to cut down on changes in payment amounts and mistakes in payments, which have been a problem for a lot of Social Security users lately.
The SSA is committed to making the SSI program more efficient and fair, and these changes show that. The SSA wants to better help people who depend on SSI benefits to meet their basic needs by changing rules that affect who can get benefits and how much they get paid.
The change to the rental subsidy may not raise the highest benefit amount, but it is a big step toward making SSI more available and making sure that people who get it get the right amount of help, whether it comes from the government or family members who want to help more.