Simplifying the Supplemental Security Income Program: Options for Eliminating the Counting of In-Kind Support and Maintenance

The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program pays benefits to needy aged, blind, or disabled individuals. Policies for both living arrangements and in-kind support and maintenance (ISM) are intended to direct program benefits toward persons with the least income and support, by reducing benefits for recipients living in another person's household or receiving food or shelter in kind. However, these policies are cumbersome to administer and, in some cases, poorly targeted. Benefit restructuring would simplify the SSI program by replacing ISM-related benefit reductions with benefit reductions for recipients living with another adult, thus encouraging food and housing contributions to SSI recipients. However, our simulation of the most basic benefit restructuring option shows that the initial per capita household incomes of those with benefit increases are, on average, 42 percent higher than the incomes of those with reductions - an outcome that is at odds with the basic rationale of any means-tested program.