Celebrating 50 years of the Supplemental Security Income program

In 1972, President Nixon signed legislation creating the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, and in January 1974, the Social Security Administration (SSA) issued the first monthly SSI payments. A half century later, approximately 7.4 million people—including nearly 1 million children—receive SSI payments every month to help pay for basic needs like food, rent, clothing, and medicine. To commemorate SSI's 50^th anniversary, we have prepared a special issue of the Social Security Bulletin with two articles examining the effects of the SSI program on young recipients.

In the first article, researchers from SSA, Colgate University, and Mathematica examine patterns in the frequency of medical continuing disability reviews (and the accompanying SSI payment cessations) and how they might affect child SSI participation rates. In the second article, Mathematica and SSA researchers look at the effects of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 on vocational rehabilitation service use among SSI recipients aged 14–24.

I hope you find this issue of the Bulletin informative, and I encourage you to learn more about SSI by visiting our website at https://www.ssa.gov/ssi or about Social Security's history at https://www.ssa.gov/history/.

Natalie T. Lu
Associate Commissioner for Research, Evaluation, and Statistics
Social Security Administration