By Emma Mendelson¹

The pandemic left many poor and working-class people in precarious financial positions. The federal government attempted to alleviate some of these financial burdens through Economic Impact Payments (“EIP”) providing people with three stimulus checks in 2020 and 2021. As paltry and unrealistic as these payments were (a maximum of $1,200, $600, and $1,400 for households of one, $2,400 for a married couple, and up to $500 additional for each qualifying child) in supporting the financial loss felt by many, it was at least an act meant to mitigate some of that burden. However, this caused some unforeseen damage to recipients of Supplemental Security Insurance (“SSI”).

SSI is a benefit administered by the Social Security Administration (“SSA”). To qualify, an applicant needs to either have a disability or be over the age of 65, and have a resource limit of $2,000 (or $3,000 if you are part of an eligible couple). Unlike Social Security Retirement or Social Security Disability Insurance, SSI does not have a work history requirement, which allows populations without robust work histories, like later-in-life immigrant communities, to access some kind of financial benefit. The payments are maximum $861 a month for an individual and $1,261 for a couple. This means that a beneficiary is stuck in a cycle of poverty, never allowed to save more than $2,000 (with an exception for Achieving a Better Life Experience (“ABLE”)  accounts that allow beneficiaries with disabilities to save up to $100,000 for medical related expenses) and living month-to-month on subsidiary-level cash benefits. When benefits are terminated for even one month, it can begin a ripple effect of financial burdens; for example, missing rent payments or an inability to pay medical bills that not only cause significant stress for the beneficiary but can have disastrous outcomes like homelessness or death.

Because the SSA is such a large organization and they are unable (thankfully) to see into the details of every beneficiary’s bank account, when the EIPs were direct deposited into their accounts, the Agency would merely see this as a violation of the resource limit allotted to beneficiaries. Ordinarily, tax benefits are not supposed to count as income or resources within a year of their receipt, and because this is an IRS benefit, the EIPs are supposed to be excluded as well. But even with this being established in the SSA, this has not stopped beneficiaries from having their benefits suspended or getting “overpayment” penalties if they received benefits in the same month that they received the EIPs. 

This is just one in a series of ways SSI beneficiaries have experienced exorbitant hardships during the pandemic. Since March 17, 2020, SSA field offices have closed and benefits were administered remotely. This often left older recipients, who make up a large percentage of SSI recipients, without the necessary technology skills or someone to assist them to file claims or appeals online, resulting in “fewer lower-income seniors [seeking] benefits.” Many others lost their benefits, or faced reductions in their benefits, due to difficulty with navigating the bureaucratic process. The SSA has also been difficult to reach. There was a mail backlog and beneficiaries, or their advocates, often had to call field offices multiple times in a row after experiencing “long delays,” hang ups, or transfers to voicemail boxes. Even when the SSA makes attempts to create rules and policies that assist beneficiaries, such as creating easier waiver processes for overpayments or retroactively excluding all unemployment insurance benefits, beneficiaries are not adequately informed of these changes. In many cases the damage was already done, and the recipient suffered from financial strain. This resulted in a class-action lawsuit, filed in September 2021, to challenge the SSA’s “unfair, ill-considered, and arbitrary pandemic policies.” 

The challenges beneficiaries experienced during COVID-19 are not isolated to the pandemic. SSI beneficiaries are also subjected to outdated benefits laws and inefficient SSA practices that prevent benefits from being restored swiftly. As mentioned above, the $2,000 resource limit keeps beneficiaries in a cycle of poverty. “Congress has failed to update the program for decades,” and the outdated resource limit is not in step with the ever-increasing cost of living. There have been recent pushes in Congress to reform SSI to keep beneficiaries out of the cycle of poverty. In July 2021, Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio re-introduced the Supplemental Security Income Restoration Act (“SSI Restoration Act”) in Congress. The SSI Restoration Act would raise the 2021 limit of “$794 to 100% of the federal poverty limit,” increase the resource limits, and increase allowed income, among other substantive improvements. The bill is backed by other senators including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Maize Hirono, and Sheldon Whitehouse, but has not had any significant action since its introduction. However, recent financial disputes in Congress over budget packages could mean SSI reform gets lost by the wayside. 

Neglecting SSI reform, especially on the heels of an ever-expanding elder population would contribute to an unprecedented landscape of elder poverty. SSI is often the only source of income for many who receive it (as evidenced by SSA’s strict financial limits), and according to a report from the Urban Institute, reforming these strict financial limits could potentially “lift 3.3 million people out of poverty and cut the poverty rate among SSI recipients by more than half.” The pandemic has only exacerbated the pre-existing inefficiencies of the SSA and their benefit-eligibility process. Substantial reform is needed in order to not only fix the issues that have occurred during the pandemic, but also to create a system that can better support the elder population of the future.

1. Emma recently graduated from CUNY Law’s Part-Time program and currently works at the Bronx Defenders as law graduate, providing tenant defense as part of New York City’s Right to Counsel law. While in school, Emma spent time learning about public benefits, primarily Supplemental Security Income, with the benefits experts at New York Legal Assistance Group’s (NYLAG) Public Benefits Unit.