In 1972, when the Supplemental Security Income program was enacted, questions were raised in Congress and elsewhere about SSA’s capacity to absorb administrative responsibility for the complex new welfare program without compromising its ability to administer the much larger Social Security retirement, survivors, and disability programs. Congress ultimately chose the Social Security Administration to administer the SSI program partly because of the agency’s network of offices accessible to the public and its reputation for providing high-quality service. It was hoped that joint administration of the programs would result in improved service for low-income aged, blind, and disabled individuals and that they would experience less stigma than under the prior State-administered welfare programs. The agency had difficulties from the beginning in taking over the difficult responsibility of administering the means-tested SSI program. Over the last 25 years, the SSI program’s impact on the agency’s functioning has grown. Today SSI continues to represent a major challenge for SSA’s management.
SSA has been called upon to take on substantial casework responsibility because of the complexity of SSI rules and the characteristics of the population. Current staffing levels do not allow the agency to fulfill this responsibility. Many SSA field office personnel and advocates for the poor believe that the agency should do more to assist aged and disabled individuals. The Board believes SSA could improve the following: Provide more assistance to SSI claimants than it is currently providing; be more diligent and careful in helping to obtain representative payees; find ways to make it easier for individuals to report income, and other changes that will result in a change in benefits; improve the consistency and fairness of the disability determination process and make it quicker and easier to negotiate; and do more to help SSI applicants and beneficiaries find and retain employment.
The Statement is included in SSA’s 1998 Annual Report on the SSI Program. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 gives Board members the opportunity, individually or jointly, to include their views on SSI in SSA’s annual report to the President and Congress on the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. The Board or one of its members has submitted a statement every year since 1998, except for 2024 due to the lack of a quorum.