II. Highlights
• During calendar year 2020, 1.3 million individuals applied for SSI benefits based on blindness or disability, a decrease of 14 percent as compared to the 1.5 million who applied in 2019. Additionally, 96 thousand individuals applied for SSI benefits based on age, a decrease of 24 percent as compared to the 127 thousand who applied in 2019. In 2020, 597 thousand applicants became new recipients of SSI benefits, a decrease of 17 percent as compared to the 724 thousand who became new recipients in 2019.
• Each month on average during calendar year 2020, 7.9 million individuals received Federal SSI benefits. This group was composed of 1.1 million aged recipients and 6.8 million blind or disabled recipients, of which 66 thousand were blind. Of these 6.8 million blind or disabled recipients, 1.1 million were under age 18, and 1.1 million were aged 65 or older. During calendar year 2020, 8.6 million aged, blind, or disabled individuals received Federal SSI benefits for at least 1 month.
• The cost SSA incurred to administer the SSI program in FY 2020 was $4.4 billion, which was roughly 7 percent of total federally administered SSI expenditures.1Since we submitted the 2020 Annual Report of the Supplemental Security Income Program to the President and Congress on May 29, 2020, there have been no legislative changes made to the SSI program.
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