Trapped in a Social Safety Net

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4.5 • 52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2024

⏱️ 33 minutes

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Summary

In 1972, the federal government launched a program to support the poorest disabled and elderly Americans. Supplemental Security Income, run by the Social Security Administration, provides monthly checks that are a lifeline for some of the most vulnerable people in this country.

SSI was intended to serve as a powerful safety net and a tool for fighting poverty. But a recent NPR Investigation led by correspondent Joseph Shapiro has discovered a very different reality today.

In today's episode of The Sunday Story, Shapiro explains how SSI's outdated rules have made the system difficult to run and almost impossible for its beneficiaries to navigate. Impoverished disabled and elderly people say they have been penalized for trying to improve their lives—for saving money, getting married, and even daring to have careers.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday story.
0:03.6	When you think about Social Security, you might think about someone who's retired, getting a check,
0:09.2	you know, living on a fixed income with help from Social Security.
0:13.9	But Social Security includes a wide range of programs that make up the social safety net in the U.S.
0:23.7	Growing up, I knew of extended family or friends of family who depended on these monthly checks because they had disabilities
0:28.5	or children with disabilities or they didn't have a lot of money and they needed this money
0:34.1	to survive. My mom actually worked for Social Security in the 80s, and she
0:40.4	helped a lot of people get these benefits. Today, we're going to focus on a program that
0:47.5	supports people with disabilities and Americans who are very, very poor. It's called Supplemental Security Income, or SSI,
0:57.3	and it serves some of the most vulnerable Americans.
1:00.9	NPR correspondent Joseph Shapiro has been reporting on this program over the last year.
1:07.0	He recently published a series of investigative stories on NPR about SSI.
1:13.1	We sat down to talk about the ins and outs of this program, and he told me a lot of stories,
1:19.2	including one about Karen Williams, a 63-year-old woman in Philadelphia.
1:24.6	Karen Williams couldn't work because of a disability.
1:29.9	She was struggling to pay for her everyday expenses, but she was proud of how she managed the little money she did have. And I was
1:35.7	just making a dollar not only holler, but make it scream. And that's what I was doing. I knew how to juggle money and save and put up and all that.
1:52.0	But it wasn't enough. One of her health care providers told her about this program called SSI.
1:58.2	So she applied.
1:59.4	And the monthly benefit, she got several hundred dollars a month, was a relief.
2:03.6	It made her life better.
2:04.8	It helped her get by, at least for a while.
	...

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