[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 28, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E239-E240]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE SSI MODERNIZATION ACT OF 2001

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 28, 2001

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, today I support ``The SSI Modernization Act 
of 2001,'' for which I am an original cosponsor. In 1972, the Congress 
passed legislation to create the Supplementary Security Income (SSI) 
Program to help the most vulnerable in our society. The SSI Program 
provides a base level of a support to the elderly, disabled and blind 
who do not qualify for Social Security or whose Social Security 
benefits are inadequate. Currently, about 6.6 million of these 
individuals rely on SSI to provide income for the basic necessities of 
food, clothing, and shelter.
  Unfortunately, Congress has done little since the creation of SSI to 
ensure that the program serves the recipients in the 21st century as 
well as it did in the 20th century. As a result, the program now serves 
a population living at a level of 70 percent of poverty and does not 
serve those at or near the poverty line. This bill does six items to 
modernize SSI:
  1. It rewards SSI recipients who want to work by increasing the 
amount of earned income excluded from reducing the SSI benefit from $65 
to $130 a month and indexes it to inflation in future years. This limit 
has not been increased since 1972 and would be $260 a month if they had 
kept pace with inflation.
  2. It increases the General Income exclusion from $20 to $40 of 
income per month and would index the amount to inflation in future 
years. This exclusion means that the first $40 of income received by an 
SSI recipient will not be used to reduce their benefit check. For 
recipients who have a significant work history and receive a Social 
Security benefit, they will be able to retain more of their Social 
Security benefit. This limit has not been increased since 1972 and 
would be $80 if it had kept pace with inflation.
  3. The bill increases the amount of resources that recipients are 
allowed to own from $2,000 to $3,000 for an individual and from $3,000 
to $4,500 for a couple and then indexes it for inflation in future 
years. If these resources limits had kept pace with inflation they 
would be $6,000 for an individual and $9,000 for a couple.
  4. The amount of infrequent or irregular income that recipients are 
allowed to earn before benefit reduction is increased from $10 to

[[Page E240]]

$20 a month for earned income and $20 to $40 a month for unearned 
income. These limits have not been changed since 1981.
  5. The bill delays SSI eligibility redeterminations for disabled 
children from 18 years old until one of two things occur first: either 
the person becomes 21 years old or finishes secondary school.
  6. SSI would exclude the entire amount of educational grants, 
scholarships from SSI income determinations and exclude it for up to 9 
months for SSI resource determinations.
  This is a small incremental bill that makes some long overdue 
technical improvements to SSI. I look forward to working with my 
colleagues to quickly enact this legislation to improve the lives of 
the most economically vulnerable Americans who depend on SSI.

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