The Social Security Administration (SSA) recently released a report that illustrates how simple, practical action by the government can dramatically improve the lives of impoverished elderly and disabled persons. Members of Congress, and even their technical staff members, are often too busy to examine reports issued by federal agencies, but this one is worth a look.
SSA mailed outreach letters to individuals informing them of potential eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a program that provides modest cash benefits and access to Medicaid for low-income disabled and elderly individuals. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) forcefully pushed for the outreach during a Senate Finance hearing in 2021.
Wyden’s push and SSA’s actions did much to help impoverished disabled and elderly citizens, with SSA indicating the outreach will increase lifetime SSI payments to these individuals by about $530 million.
The cost of the outreach totaled $32 million, implying the ratio of benefits received by the public to the cost of the outreach is 17 to 1. Mailing informational letters, part of SSA’s Equity and Outreach initiatives, proved to be a highly efficient mechanism to help individuals in poverty.
The structure of the outreach and its efficiency help to inform recent — and somewhat heated — discussions in Congress. At a recent hearing in the House of Representatives, Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), the chair of the Social Security Subcommittee of Ways and Means, sharply criticized SSA’s “equity” initiatives as adding to the agency’s disability backlog.
In many cases, however, SSA’s outreach is about elderly persons, not disabled persons. The number of individuals ages 65 or older who were awarded SSI benefits rose sharply after the letters were sent.
Indeed, the number of senior citizens awarded SSI benefits each month is now consistently twice the number awarded during the difficult months for SSA following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
SSA’s outreach was targeted to Social Security beneficiaries who had very low Social Security benefit amounts and, therefore, might qualify for some SSI benefits. In other words, these individuals worked and paid taxes, but did not have the high earnings over their careers needed to get high Social Security benefits.
Having only modest earnings over one’s career is no sin; it is, simply, effective government to help such individuals.
Ferguson’s strong reaction to “equity” initiatives may be tied to political flashpoints in the country around that term. But with regard to the programs administered by SSA, “equity” is not “politically correct” rhetoric. Rather, equity initiatives can address real-world problems many Americans face.
For example, adverse health and economic outcomes disproportionately occur among African Americans. These outcomes are plainly related to the long history of discrimination against African Americans.
Rather than letting language get in the way, conservatives should begin to see programs such as SSI as sensible responses by the government to mitigate hardship, generally, and in particular as a way to prevent hardship from falling disproportionately on some groups of Americans.
Contrary to popular opinion, Americans of modest means do not abuse federal programs. Indeed, the opposite is true. For example, past research has found that between 30 and 40 percent of elderly individuals eligible for SSI do not receive benefits from the program.
SSI benefits, if claimed, are modest but have an outsized effect on economic security because their receipt generally establishes eligibility for Medicaid. Even a person who receives Medicare can reduce out-of-pocket costs and qualify for other health benefits by also qualifying for Medicaid.
The wrap-around Medicaid benefits are worth, on average, about $15,000 per year. By way of comparison, the amount of SSI cash benefits received by recipients of SSA’s outreach, on average, was likely about $2,000 per year.
Factoring in the Medicaid benefits generated indirectly by the outreach, SSA’s mailings almost certainly provided far more than just $530 million in assistance to impoverished disabled and elderly persons over their lifetimes.
Congressional interest in the SSI program is growing and there have been recent proposals to make SSI a more effective anti-poverty program. Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) introduced legislation to raise the benefit level to at least the poverty standard in the United States. Legislation by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) would update the asset limits in the program (which have been frozen at levels established in the 1980s).
These legislative proposals have merit but, regardless of the policy landscape, the government has a responsibility to communicate with members of the public about their eligibility for benefits. The results from the SSI outreach offer some important lessons for testing, implementing and evaluating effective communication strategies in the federal government.
The SSA project began with a classic treatment-control group pilot study that showed mailed outreach letters led to individuals receiving benefits they are due. The project was then scaled up and well executed by SSA. Finally, a very careful evaluation report was produced.
In contrast, many social media communication campaigns conducted by the federal government, though perceived as cutting edge, do not follow these steps, leaving policymakers guessing as to whether they work or not.
It turns out that getting back to the basics and simply using the U.S. mail is a powerful way to help vulnerable Americans.
David A. Weaver, Ph.D., is an economist and retired federal employee who has authored a number of studies on the Social Security program. His views do not reflect the views of any organization.