New Bipartisan Bill Raises Social Security SSI Savings Caps
The caps haven't been raised since 1984, the bill's sponsors say.
Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, have introduced bipartisan legislation to raise the savings caps in Social Security’s Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which they say has not been updated in nearly 40 years and “punishes older and disabled Americans for saving for emergencies and their futures.”
The SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act, introduced Tuesday, “would update SSI’s asset limits for the first time since the 1980s to ensure disabled and elderly Americans are able to prepare themselves for a financial emergency without putting the benefits they rely on to live at risk,” according to the senators.
Brown first floated the bill in 2022.
Raising the Caps
Individuals receiving SSI benefits are limited to $2,000 in assets; for married couples, it’s $3,000, the senators explained.
“The average current monthly benefit is $585 for individuals,” the senators said. “For approximately 60% of recipients, SSI is their only source of income.”
The Savings Penalty Elimination Act would raise those caps, which have not been changed since 1984, to $10,000 for individuals and $20,000 for married couples, and index them to inflation moving forward.
The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Susan Collins, R-Maine, Bob Casey, D-Pa., and James Lankford, R-Okla.
Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Brian Higgins, D-N.Y., plan to introduce companion legislation in the House.
The senators cited a study by JPMorgan Chase & Co., which they said suggests “that current asset and income limits on federal benefits for people with disabilities create barriers to labor force participation and accumulating savings.”
Per the study, the senators said, “updating asset limits for SSI, as the Savings Penalty Elimination Act would do, would expand economic opportunity and mobility for people with disabilities.”
Social Security Works added Tuesday in its own statement that it “strongly endorses” the legislation.
“Even one dollar in savings above the limits of $2,000 for an individual or $3,000 for a couple results not just in the loss of SSI cash benefits but also can result in the loss of Medicaid, housing assistance, and other benefits,” Social Security Works explained.
The limits also “penalize marriage as well — [allowing them to] only save three-fourths of the amount two individuals are allowed to save,” according to the group. “Moreover, these stringent and intrusive limits are extremely costly for the Social Security Administration to administer.”
Social Security Works urged Congress to “immediately pass the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act into law. It should then eliminate the program’s other marriage penalties, as well as update and expand it in other ways.”