Brown’s bill would help address challenges faced by poor
We apparently needed a pandemic to learn that poor people need more money.
We have dispensed more money to poor people and almost everyone else in the past year. These funds have been critical to our personal well-being and our economy. But many in our communities have struggled with meeting their basic needs long before the pandemic.
I spent more than 48 years working with poor people and the Ohio welfare system, including 33 years as a director with the Department of Job and Family Services in a very poor Appalachian county.
Our public assistance programs are largely targeted to those populations we deem “deserving.”
Children, the elderly and the disabled have been considered to fall into the deserving group. Once we have subjected those people to a very thorough eligibility process, we proceed to provide them with incomes that are still far below the poverty level.
So even our most disadvantaged deserving citizens still struggle to survive even if we know they have no other means of support.
Our support for our safety net programs has continued to shrink for decades. One of those programs is the Supplemental Security Income program.
SSI is a means-tested federal program for the elderly and disabled. It is not easy to get SSI assistance.
Many people are initially denied, especially though the disability determination process. As thousands of applicants will tell you, it is common for it to take more than a year and require the help of a lawyer and an appeals process to get approved.
After enduring that struggle, their monthly benefit will still be far below the poverty level. Many SSI recipients live in households with other poor family members, especially grandchildren.
Life for these families and individuals is a daily struggle to meet their basic needs for housing, food, transportation, personal hygiene products and other essentials.
A recent bill introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown and others would make significant improvements to the SSI program.
The Supplemental Security Restoration Act would address many of the challenges program recipients face.
Benefits levels currently are set at about 75% of the poverty level, with a $795-per-month maximum for an individual. This bill would raise the payment to equal the poverty level and then be indexed to inflation thereafter.
The federal poverty level is $1,073 per month for a single person.
It would also increase asset limits and income disregards. These standards have not been adjusted in decades. Today, married couples who are both eligible receive only $1,191 per month.
This bill would eliminate the marriage penalty and pay the full single rate to both. In practice, many current recipients receive less than the maximum. In total, the program serves about 308,000 people in Ohio and brings in $2.2 billion a year in revenue.
The proposed across-the-board raise would improve benefits by at least 30%, with an increase of an additional $670 million a year for these poor households. The impact of the various rule changes could increase that amount even more.
Most important, it would provide a much-needed boost to some of our poorest families and communities. This legislation is a long time coming and is more vital now than ever. It needs our support.
Jack Frech has been a longtime advocate for the poor. He retired after serving 33 years as director of the Athens County Department of Job and Family Services.