2021 Annual Report of the SSI Program

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II. Highlights
The SSI program is a nationwide Federal assistance program administered by SSA that guarantees a minimum level of income for aged, blind, or disabled individuals. This section presents highlights of recent SSI program experience, a summary of important legislative changes to the program in the last year, a discussion of current issues facing the SSI program, and a summary of the key results from the 25-year projections.
A. Recent Program Experience
SSI program experience during the past year included the following:
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.1
B. SSI Legislation Since The 2020 Annual Report
Since 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.
C. Current Issues Facing The SSI Program
For almost 50 years, the SSI program has provided a safety net for aged, blind, and disabled Americans who have nowhere else to turn. The program plays a crucial role in the lives of over eight million Americans and is funded from general tax revenues. Accordingly, we take great care to administer the program as accurately and efficiently as possible and remain committed to effectively overseeing the program, protecting taxpayer dollars, and maintaining the public’s trust by paying the right person the right benefit at the right time.
Outreach to People Facing Barriers During the Pandemic
The pandemic has imposed hardships on our country’s most vulnerable citizens, many of whom are elderly, have low incomes, have limited English proficiency, face homelessness, or experience mental illness. SSI benefits are a crucial lifeline that not only helps vulnerable people meet their basic needs of food and shelter, but in many places SSI eligibility also serves as a gateway that provides automatic eligibility for other programs, such as Medicaid. Over the course of the pandemic, SSI applications decreased from their pre-pandemic levels. In response, we have prioritized our outreach to vulnerable populations to ensure the public is aware of and can access SSI and our other benefit programs.
We have worked closely on this effort with a variety of interested parties, including representatives of the non-profit community; health care organizations; private industry; the advocate community; and Federal, State, and local governments. Through our partnerships, these groups help share information about our programs, assist in taking SSI claims, and actively refer individuals potentially eligible for SSI to our field offices.
We have also enhanced our communications and online content to further support these efforts. For example, we conducted a national advertising campaign on TV, radio, and social media to bolster our outreach efforts, with special emphasis on children with disabilities. We also added online tools and informational pages to our website including:
We are also conducting mailed outreach to certain Social Security beneficiaries who may be eligible for SSI. Between December 2020 and March 2021, we released approximately 200,000 notices to this group encouraging them to contact us to apply for SSI. We plan to expand this initiative and send SSI outreach letters to another 1.2 million Social Security beneficiaries starting in the middle of calendar year 2021.
 
D. Key Results From The 25-Year Projections
The major findings in the 25-year projections prepared for this report are:
Following small declines in the SSI recipient population in the late 1990s due to the combined impact of Public Law 104-121 (the Contract with America Advancement Act of 1996) and Public Law 104-193 (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996), modest growth in the SSI rolls resumed in 2000. The economic recession that began in late 2007 led to faster growth in the SSI recipient population through 2013, but in recent years the SSI recipient population has slightly declined as the number of applicants for SSI payments declined through 2020. The number of applications decreased sharply in 2020, due to a number of pandemic-related effects. In 2021, the number of applications is projected to remain low as the pandemic continues. In 2022 and 2023, the number of applications is projected to increase sharply as the pandemic abates. In 2024 and 2025, the number of applications is projected to return to levels more consistent with longer-term expected experience, and then remain at roughly this level thereafter. By 2045, we project that the Federal SSI recipient population will reach 8.5 million. As a percentage of the total Social Security area population, we project the number of Federal SSI recipients to decrease very gradually from 2.34 in 2020 to 2.21 percent of the population by 2045. This occurs for several reasons, including that the percent of the population potentially eligible for SSI based on their citizenship and residency status is projected to decline slightly in the future.

1
Administrative costs do not include the costs of beneficiary services provided to recipients through State vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies and employment networks for VR services and payments under the Ticket to Work program.


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