The Supplemental Security Income program: the welfare state's black hole.

• Author: Wright, Christopher M.

Over the past several years, the Supplemental Security Income program (SSI) has been plagued by scandal and exploding costs for taxpayers. Enacted in 1972 primarily to provide a supplement to Social Security retirement benefits for low-income seniors and blind and disabled individuals, SSI has experienced phenomenal, unanticipated growth in enrollment and dollar outlays. Populations that once were marginal to its primary mission--such as drug addicts, alcoholics, children, and immigrants--are swelling the ranks of SSI, and their numbers are expected to increase. Meanwhile, the percentage of aged Americans on the rolls has been dropping. SSI is a troubling case study in how Federal entitlements continually expand beyond their original mission.

The combined Federal expenditures on SSI and its sister program, Disability Insurance (DI), are now $55,300,000,000. Disability has become the fourth largest area of entitlement spending after Social Security retirement, Medicare, and Medicaid. Projections are that expenditures for SSI alone will grow by at least 60% by the Fiscal Year 2000.

Both the SSI and DI statutes contain an ostensibly strict definition of disability. The applicant must be unable "to engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to result in death or which has lasted or can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months." That definition purports to include only long-term, total disability.

SSI originally was sold on the basis of primarily helping the aged, but nearly two-thirds of the recipients today are blind or disabled persons under age 65. The maximum monthly Federal SSI payment is $458 for singles and $687 for couples. Moreover, most states supplement these monthly benefits, and many of them make program recipients eligible for food stamps and Medicaid.

Congress, the Social Security Administration (SSA), and the courts have relaxed the rules regarding "disability," thus making it easier to qualify for SSI. For example, the statute was liberalized in 1984 with respect to mental impairments, multiple handicaps, and subjective complaints of pain. The Supreme Court, in Sulliva v. Zebley (1990), gave children more ways to qualify for SSI, significantly boosting enrollment. SSA changed its regulations regarding childhood mental impairment at about the same time, and, according to the General Accounting Office (GAO), the modified rules account for even more new young recipients than did the Zehley case.

Thus, SSI is following the historical pattern of swift expansion of definitions. as observed in earlier disability programs. DI, passed in 1956, originally was limited to workers between the ages of 50 and 65. In 1958, dependents were included in coverage. In 1960, the age restriction was removed. Then. in 1965, the definition of disability was expanded so that conditions expected to last just 12 months qualify as permanent disabilities.

Courts have a long history of expanding the definition of disability, starting with the government's War Risk Insurance program for World War I veterans. The pattern continued in the 1930s with respect to private disability insurance policies. It was then that courts refused to accept as literal the explicit language requiring claimants to be "wholly incapacitated before their claims would be honored."

Other factors have driven costs upward. For instance, partially in response to Congressional mandates, SSA is spending roughly $8,000.000 a year to find new beneficiaries. At the same time. relentless pressure on the part of professionals and groups that lobby for minorities and the poor has led to increased claims. Outreach is conducted at homeless shelters and through advocacy groups that can locate disabled persons and help bring them onto the rolls.

Should their claims be denied, claimants can pursue several layers of appeal, 80% of which ultimately are successful. Appeals are being launched in record numbers as claimants and their attorneys discover that the door to SSI seldom is shut permanently. For instance, lawyers in Pennsylvania run ads declaring, "Social Security is well known for denying meritorious claims that later are approved. . . . Don't let a bureaucrat determine your future. Keep appealing."

A spate of media horror stories on the scandals and abuses that appear to pervade the program finally has brought SSI into the public spotlight. For many persons who now receive SSI, the claim of "disability" is highly dubious...