Social Security

Size and Scope of the Supplemental Security Income Program

• About 7.4 million people received federally administered payments in December 2007.
• The average monthly payment in December 2007 was $468.
• Total payments for the year were more than $41 billion, including about $4 billion in federally administered state supplementation.

Profile of Recipients

• The majority were female (56 percent).
• Fifteen percent were under age 18, 57 percent were aged 18 to 64, and 27 percent were aged 65 or older.
• Most (83 percent) were eligible on the basis of a disability.
• Almost 5 out of 10 recipients under the age of 65 were diagnosed with a mental disorder.
• More than half (56 percent) had no income other than their SSI payment.
• Thirty-five percent of SSI recipients also received Social Security benefits.
• Of the people receiving SSI benefits, about 2 percent were residing in a Title XIX institution where Medicaid was paying more than half of the cost.
• Despite their disabilities, about 357,000 recipients (5.7 percent) were working in December 2007.

Since 1974, the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program has guaranteed a minimum level of income for needy aged, blind, or disabled individuals. Each year, we issue a report that presents data on the SSI program and the people who receive benefits from it. The report covers such topics as:

• federal benefit rates and total annual payments;
• federally administered payments;
• recipients of Social Security, SSI, or both;
• children under age 18;
• noncitizens;
• diagnoses of recipients under age 65;
• recipients who work;
• applications;
• awards;
• outcomes of applications for disability benefits; and
• suspension of benefits.

Effective with this year, the reports Children Receiving SSI and SSI Disabled Recipients Who Work are being discontinued. Tables from those reports are now included in this report.

Clark D. Pickett managed the preparation of this report. Alfreda Brooks, Stella Coleman, Art Kahn, Judi Papas, and Clark Pickett prepared the statistical tables and narratives. Staff of the Division of Information Resources edited the report and prepared the print and electronic versions for publication.

Manuel de la Puente
Associate Commissioner for Research, Evaluation, and Statistics
September 2008

All payments are federally administered payments.

Numbers in the text and tables may not add to totals because of rounding.

Monthly data shown in tables are for the end of the given month.

Due to the inclusion of tables formerly in the reports Children Receiving SSI and SSI Disabled Recipients Who Work, all tables previously numbered 16 or higher have been renumbered.

The table entitled "Recipients terminated, by age and reason for termination" was not produced this year.

For consistency of data presentation across tables, the category "Unknown" has been added to data groupings in several tables.