Memo: Voters Overwhelmingly Support Strengthening Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) provides vital income assistance to roughly eight million of the nation’s poorest people with disabilities and older adults. But due to decades of federal neglect, SSI has been left to wither on the vine—and the program now consigns millions of disabled people and older adults to deep and enduring poverty when it should instead give them a lifeline out of it. During the campaign, President Biden pledged that disabled people and seniors should never have to live in poverty in America, and committed to make several long-overdue improvements to SSI to ensure its beneficiaries are able to live in dignity.
New polling conducted by Data for Progress and The Century Foundation shows that voters support congressional action to finally bring SSI into the 21st century. As part of a May survey conducted by Data for Progress and The Century Foundation of 1,250 likely voters nationally, we measured public attitudes on President Biden’s proposals to update SSI. The findings reveal overwhelming bipartisan support for each of President Biden’s proposals to improve SSI.
