America’s Social Security system offers critical protection from poverty and hardship in old age, as well as for workers who are unable to support themselves through work due to disability. However, our current programs fall short in a variety of ways, leaving millions of low-income, disabled, and older workers to fall through the cracks. The National Academy of Social Insurance continues to examine an array of policy options to strengthen economic security for disabled older workers in the U.S., as policymakers work to “build back better” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes an urgent, long-standing need to update and rebuild the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which has suffered from decades of federal neglect.
