OPINION: When We Call For A Living Wage, We Must Not Forget The Most Vulnerable Among Us; or: How The US Supplemental Security Income System Perpetuates Poverty, Misery And Abuse

7 min readJan 28, 2021

When the Social Security program was first conceived of in the 1930s as part of FDR’s New Deal, the United States was the only industrialized country without any national system for the prevention of poverty. There were patchwork programs in place, but they were few and far between and generally, if you did not earn enough while working to retire on and did not have working relatives to live with or depend on for financial help, you were thrust into poverty as soon as you could no longer work. (1) In addition to providing economic security to the elderly after retirement, the Social Security program provided funding for state-administered programs to ensure economic security for dependent children, those unemployed through no fault of their own (the start of our unemployment programs), the financially needy, and the disabled. However, the programs for the disabled were grants administered at the state level, which meant that eligibility criteria and benefit amounts varied widely. (2)

In the 1970s, the federal government made amendments to the Social Security Act (3), and one of those amendments concerned the creation of the SSI program. This standardized eligibility and benefit amounts across the U.S. The first monthly benefit amount in 1974 was $117, or $1,404 per year. To put that into perspective, that is equivalent to roughly $624/month in 2020 dollars, or $7,488/year. Since then, along with other Social Security benefit amounts, the SSI maximum monthly benefit amount has received a COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) annually, purportedly to keep up with inflation. The highest COLA was 14.3% in 1980; the lowest was 0% in 2009, 2010 and 2015; the average COLA percentage over the 46 years it has been implemented is 3.632; and the last time it was more than 3% was 2011 (3.6%). (4)

Of course, even in 1974, the first year SSI benefits were implemented, the maximum monthly benefit amount — $117 — was, depending on where you lived, either not enough to even pay rent much less other expenses, or enough to just barely scrape by. We know this from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for Rent of primary residence; the average rent in 1974 was $55.15 (5), the highest rent amount in 1970 was $189 (Alaska), and the lowest was $65 (Mississippi). (6) It was also the equivalent of just $0.73/hr at a job working 40 hours a week; the minimum wage, in 1974, was $2.00/hr. So even when the program started, it was less than half of minimum wage, and it has never caught up.

Today, the maximum monthly SSI benefit amount — $794/month in 2021 (7) — is the equivalent of $4.96/hr at a full-time job working 40 hours a week. That is $2.29/hr LESS than the current federal minimum wage of $7.25, which has been widely recognized as not being a living wage. But, as SSI is a means-tested program based on financial need, recipients are also not guaranteed that full amount. When a SSI recipient, for example, lives with relatives or anywhere without paying rent, a “housing income” amount — and often a “food income” amount as well — is deducted from the monthly benefit amount.

For example, my 2021 monthly benefit amount is just $529.34. That’s right, because I live with relatives, my monthly benefit amount is the equivalent of just $3.31/hr at a full-time job working 40 hours a week. I am unable to work even a sit-down job, however. My medical conditions that cause my disabilities prevent me from doing so.

Of course, this does not take into account that one of my relatives is abusing me, or my need to get away from my abuser before the abuse causes me permanent harm or even death.

(Full disclosure: the secondary reason I’ve taken up writing articles on Medium is to try to generate some income from home in a desperate attempt to get away from my abuser. The main reason, however, is to generate awareness on issues like this.)

Even if I was receiving the maximum monthly benefit amount — $794 — it’s not enough to pay rent along with other expenses like food, toiletries and basic utilities. The average monthly rent for a studio apartment in 2020 was $1,690 (8); the average rent for a studio apartment in my particular metro area is around $725/month. And of course, being disabled, I have accommodation needs: I cannot navigate stairs, I am unable to walk long distances (such as from an apartment complex parking lot to an apartment), and I need a walk-in shower as I am unable to use the standard bathtub/shower combo. This limits my options even further.

A monthly mortgage payment would, in theory, be more affordable for someone in my position (a $50,000 mortgage would have roughly a $225 monthly payment, which is around 28% of the maximum monthly SSI benefit of $794, 28% being the maximum percentage of your monthly income that financial experts say you should spend on a mortgage). I am clever enough to make it work, too.

But, like with so much else about SSI, there are factors that limit my being able to take this path, as well. First, SSI has an asset rule — you are not allowed to have more than $2,000 each month to your name, or they count it as income and deduct it from your monthly benefit amount. (A house you own and live in, and one vehicle up to a certain amount, does not count as an asset.) They also have income rules, and any income you get each month — earned or unearned — will reduce your monthly benefit amount. (9) This means the ability to save — if I could somehow find a way to save money from a $529.34/month check, which is impossible — is heavily curtailed. Traditional mortgages require 20% of the home purchase price as a down payment, which for a $50,000 mortgage would be $10,000. Impossible for someone in my situation; we can’t save more than $1,999 without it counting as income and being deducted from our check.

Of course, there are non traditional mortgages that require just a 0–3% down payment. Unfortunately, they all have rules that exclude someone in my situation. Either my monthly income is not high enough to qualify (the USDA rural development 502 direct home loan, for example, would seem on the surface to be designed for someone in my position; however, as I found out, they have a minimum monthly income requirement that is higher than the maximum monthly SSI benefit), or the program can only be used to purchase a site-built home in move-in ready condition. Which, finding a site-built home for $50,000 or less in move-in ready condition anywhere in the US has proved impossible — I’ve looked, site-built homes priced that low are sold in “as-in” condition and are in need of structural repair before move-in — and even if I could find one, it would not have the accessibility features I need, also necessitating rehab.

So here I am, stuck living with my abuser. We don’t even live in a decent home; it’s a 30+ year mobile home with only 1 functioning shower and a mold problem. My abuser is also anti-science when it comes to COVID19, has admitted to me that she will pull her (begrudgingly worn) face mask down in stores because she “can’t breathe,” and a big source of conflict between us is that she wants to have anyone and everyone over for visits at our house, people outside of our COVID bubble. I have numerous comorbidities that mean if I do catch the virus, I stand a very large chance of dying from the complications. I also never know day-to-day when the next episode of abuse will happen or what will set it off, my stress and blood pressure levels has skyrocketed (even with blood pressure medication) and can cause me to have a heart attack or stroke one day, and frankly the chances of it escalating to physical abuse that could put me in the hospital are greater than 0.

But I’m stuck. I can’t get away.

There are approximately 8 million SSI recipients in the United States (10) and my story is not in any way unique. We are the forgotten ones. Those who are disabled and on SSI are more likely to be black, too. (I am not.) This is because black people as a group, when they are able to work, earn less; are more likely to have gaps in employment; and are more likely to not have been able to work at all due to the effects racism has on their health from birth. In addition to a class problem, this is a racism problem.

Being disabled on it’s own is difficult enough; being trapped in poverty, misery and abuse makes it worse. Is it any wonder we have a lower life expectancy than our able-bodied peers? (11) We are 1.5 times more likely to be victims of abuse than those who are able-bodied (12) and being forced to be financially dependent upon others and being unable to get away from our abusers makes it more likely for us to be abused. (13)

And the low maximum monthly SSI benefit amount, and the means-testing rules surrounding the program, keep us trapped in poverty, misery and abuse.

Do not forget about us when advocating for a living wage.

(1) https://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html

(2) https://www.ssa.gov/oact/ssir/SSI11/ProgramDescription.html

(3) https://www.ssa.gov/history/1972amend.html

(4) https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html

(5) https://www.in2013dollars.com/Rent-of-primary-residence/price-inflation

(6) https://www.ranker.com/list/rent-prices-in-1970-compared-to-today-by-state/melissa-sartore

(7) https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/SSI.html

(8) https://www.rent.com/blog/national-apartment-rent-price-analysis/

(9) https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/income-asset-limits-ssi-disability-eligibility.html

(10) https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/15/ssi-beneficiaries-will-get-coronavirus-stimulus-payments-automatically.html