In 1972, the federal government launched a program to support the poorest disabled and elderly Americans. Supplemental Security Income, run by the Social Security Administration, provides monthly checks that are a lifeline for some of the most vulnerable people in this country.SSI was intended to serve as a powerful safety net and a tool for fighting poverty. But a recent NPR Investigation led by correspondent Joseph Shapiro has discovered a very different reality today.In today's episode of The Sunday Story, Shapiro explains how SSI's outdated rules have made the system difficult to run and almost impossible for its beneficiaries to navigate. Impoverished disabled and elderly people say they have been penalized for trying to improve their lives—for saving money, getting married, and even daring to have careers.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is Supplemental Security Income (SSI)?
We sat down to talk about the ins and outs of this program, and he told me a lot of stories, including one about Karen Williams, a 63-year-old woman in Philadelphia.
Karen Williams couldn't work because of a disability. She was struggling to pay for her everyday expenses. But she was proud of how she managed the little money she did have.
And I was just making a dollar not only holler, but make it scream. And that's what I was doing. I knew how to juggle money and save and put up and all that.
But it wasn't enough. One of her health care providers told her about this program called SSI. So she applied. And the monthly benefit, she got several hundred dollars a month, was a relief. It made her life better. It helped her get by, at least for a while. Then the program turned into her nightmare.
It's really tiresome. Today on The Sunday Story, how a program designed as a safety net for the poor and disabled has kept many in poverty instead. More on correspondent Joe Shapiro's investigation when we come back. You're listening to The Sunday Story. I'm here with correspondent Joe Shapiro talking about the Supplemental Security Income Program. So, Joe, tell me about the SSI program.
Like, who is it meant to serve?
SSI is run by the Social Security Administration. It provides financial assistance in the form of a monthly check, mostly to adults with physical disabilities or they're blind or they have mental health disabilities. Some checks go to disabled children and also to people 65 and older who are very poor.
Okay. Well, you know, I definitely know people who had little or no income, and they relied on these checks to get by.
Yes, those SSI checks, those are lifelines to some of the poorest people in this country. And this year, the average SSI check is about $700 a month. The money helps people pay for everyday expenses, food, rent, medical costs, and it qualifies them in most states for health insurance through Medicaid.
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Chapter 2: How has SSI become a forgotten safety net?
Yeah, $2,000 in today's dollars doesn't, I mean, that's really low.
Right. If SSI's asset limit had kept up with inflation, instead of being $2,000 today, it would be $10,000 today.
So given these outdated guidelines, I would imagine that a lot of people are being kicked off or having to really live in terrible conditions to stay under that $2,000 limit.
Yeah. I heard dozens and dozens of stories from people who ran into that $2,000 asset limit. You know, people who get SSI, they're required to report everything they own to Social Security and to let the agency monitor their bank accounts and collect income data. I spoke to a man in Illinois.
He said he felt trapped living in what he told me was a run-down apartment with rodents in an unsafe neighborhood. So he went looking for a new apartment. He saved up to make the down payment. Social Security, though, saw the money in his bank account, and he was now over $2,000, and it sent him a letter saying it was going to kick him off of SSI. So he stopped saving, and he never moved.
I heard about a family whose roof collapsed. They took a small loan from a friend. Social Security counted the loan as an asset, and the family lost benefits for their disabled son. And on Long Island in New York, I met Peter Belletti. He drove tractor trailers, but loading and unloading those rigs left him with nerve damage. He had pain, numbness in his feet. He had to stop working.
So he battled for years to get onto SSI. He kept getting turned down because of something he told SSI that he owned.
They said, did you get rid of the timeshare?
A one-week vacation timeshare in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania.
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Chapter 3: What are the outdated rules of SSI?
Beletti said the timeshare was worthless. He didn't use it, and he couldn't sell it.
And I can't even give it away.
Chapter 4: How do asset limits affect SSI beneficiaries?
One reason, he owned it with his ex-wife. He could sell only half of his share, three and a half days a year, and whoever bought it would need to spend their vacation the same week as Mr. Beletti's ex-wife.
I'm sure his ex-wife is lovely, but, you know, you may not want to spend your vacation with her. You know what I'm saying? You have to work that out with her. So, I mean, that's a really wild story.
I'm sure there are better timeshare offers on the market.
Yeah, yeah.
I heard so many stories like this that just seem to defy common sense.
So, I mean, it just seems like these stories, these people are really struggling and really need this money. And they're getting held up over these kind of technicalities, it almost sounds like.
Yeah. And I want to tell you about Karen Williams, the woman who told me she knew how to squeeze her money to make a dollar holler.
Yeah, yeah. I love that.
Right? Yeah. She, too, ran into a problem with the asset limit. It all started when she bought a life insurance policy to pay for her own funeral.
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Chapter 5: What challenges do beneficiaries face with SSI?
You know, I grew up down south, and down south, people have life insurance. My grandmother used to have her insurance policy nailed on the door, and she would put the money inside this little jacket, and every week or two weeks, whenever the insurance guy came, he would mark the book and take the money out.
with the little book that brings back memories.
It was probably 50 cents a week, but they had it. That's how people paid their life insurance.
Karen Williams, she didn't have an envelope tacked to her door, but she put money aside to save up for her policy. What she didn't understand, though, was that she'd bought the kind of insurance policy that had a modest cash value, that she could cash it in for $1,900. To SSI, that counted as an asset. Yeah, Lord.
We see that all the time. Exactly.
In 2019, Williams got a letter from Social Security telling her, you better come to our office. And that's where a staffer told her that Social Security found records of that insurance policy, plus the couple hundred dollars that she'd saved in the bank. As a result, she'd gone over the asset limit by about $160 and had been for the last two years.
$20,000?
I mean, that's a lot of money for anybody.
She now owed $20,385.85, to be exact. Because Social Security was counting all the SSI checks, the several hundred dollars a month they had sent to her, in the two years that she'd been over the limit.
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Chapter 6: How does SSI impact people's ability to save?
And I mean, a lot of people ain't going to have $20,000. A lot of people are not going to have $20,000 in 30 days.
Right. It was impossible. She didn't have that kind of money. You know, after she lost her SSI check, she had to get by with help from her children and friends. She found a lawyer at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia who helped her challenge the big bill she got from SSI. And eventually, Social Security started sending her benefit checks again.
And it conceded that it made a technical mistake in the way it handled her case. Social Security said it would waive the money she owed, but it's still deducting money from her checks. So Karen Williams is still fighting the Social Security administration.
Oh. It's really tiresome. I am so, so through with this. And I can believe that a lot of people just give up.
The impact of it is just cruel.
This is Kathleen Romig. When I spoke to her, she worked at a Washington think tank called the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Earlier this year, she went to work at the Social Security Administration. She's written about raising the asset limit or ending it altogether.
We know that saving is good. We know that we can use savings to invest in things that can make people's lives better, for example, education or safe and stable housing. We know that saving is necessary for that. And yet we're prohibiting some of the poorest, most vulnerable people from doing just that.
By Social Security's own reporting, one in six people on SSI got overpayment notices last year. So that's about one million people on SSI just in one year told they owed money back to Social Security. Now, we did reach out to Social Security, and we talked to Commissioner Martin O'Malley. He was appointed by President Biden, and actually, he just stepped down.
But when we spoke, O'Malley pointed out that he's done some things in the past year to try to make it easier for people to apply for SSI, also to follow some of these complex rules. And here's one of the most ridiculous rules.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of overpayment notices from SSI?
We'd like to get married.
And be able to go to the doctor.
Be able to go to the doctor.
We would like to get married.
Like to get married.
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Chapter 8: What changes are being proposed for the SSI program?
And be able to pay rent and bills.
be able to pay rent and bills.
And end up not living. And not living. In a cardboard box.
In a cardboard box.
By the powers invested in me, I pronounce you all together. You may kiss, hug, high five, handshake, fist bump, whatever works.
So, Joe, if people can't get married and still keep their SSI benefits, what do they do?
Well, I spoke to about three dozen people. One of the saddest things many people told me is that they make the painful decision to close themselves off from dating, from love, romance, altogether. because they can't afford to fall in love with someone and risk losing their SSI.
One woman told me she felt forced to divorce her husband in order to keep the health care that came with her SSI eligibility. They still live together without a marriage license, but even that could get them in trouble with Social Security. Social Security calls that holding out to live as if you're married, even though you're not legally married.
So even though they spend all their time together, they still need to rent separate apartments. And when a state caseworker visits, the woman told me she takes down all the photos around the house of her with her partner.
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