U.S. Social Security & Disability Prejudice, Part III: Anti-Blackness, Racism, and Economic Oppression
U.S. Social Security & Disability Prejudice, Part III
Anti-Blackness, Racism, and Economic Oppression
As I covered in my last post, U.S. Social Security & Disability Prejudice, Part II: The Medical Model of Disability, Social Security Disability (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) determination processes promote disability stigma and prejudices. But the injustices do not stop there.
Once granted SSDI and/or SSI benefits, recipients are expected to live on below or near poverty level amounts of monthly payments. Labyrinthine rules as to other allowable financial resources and strict reporting requirements also enforce recipients living below the federal poverty level.
Disability activist Mike Ervin (2021) calls SSI’s limits “Cruel and Pppressive Rules” in a Progressive.org article. If you believe this is an overstatement, consider that as of January 2022 the maximum monthly federal SSI benefit rate is $841 for an individual and $1,261 for a couple (“SSI Federal Payment,” 2022, para. 2).
The average federal adult SSI payment in 2022 is $604 per month (“How Much,” 2022). The maximum amount of resources, such as savings or investments, permitted to be eligible for or to continue receiving SSI is $2000 for an individual and $3000 for a couple (“Understanding Supplemental Security Income--general information,” 2022). These limits have not been increased in nearly 40 years. Also note that, unlike government tax break marriage incentives, prejudiced SSI rules penalize couples in an overall reduction of combined SSI payment amount and resource limit.
Some SSI recipients are eligible for an additional State Supplemental Payment (SSP), which vary in amount and are only available in some states. Even with additional SSP, however, it is virtually impossible to receive SSI and exceed the federal poverty limit, $13,590 annually for an individual in 2022 (“Poverty Guidelines,” 2022).
Earned income that amounts to $65 or more per month, or $85 or more per month if a person has no other unearned income, also results in a deduction in SSI payments (“Understanding Supplemental Security Income--SSI income,” 2022). Consequently, SSI recipients are kept below the poverty limit even if they want to work but are not able to make enough to fully support themselves.
Numerous SSDI recipients are also left to subsist below the poverty line. For recipients like me who receive SSDI and are not blind (blind people receive larger payments), the 2022 cap on earned income is $1,350 per month (“Substantial Gainful Activity,” 2022). The average SSDI amount for an individual in 2022 is $1,358 per month (Laurence, 2022). However, as in my case, approximately two-thirds of recipients receive less than $1,358 per month, and only 10% receive $2,000 or more per month.
These restrictions deliberately economically oppress disabled and poor people with the rationalization that keeping people poor is an incentive to work (Berkowitz and Fox, 1989). Yet disabled people on SSDI or SSI who want to work and those who are not able to work, or unable to work to a degree that they can afford to live without public assistance, alike, are deliberately restricted to poverty conditions. Those of us who cannot substantially contribute to the workforce are thus systematically kept out of the national economy and in a marginalized socioeconomic status (Drake, 2001).
Historian and disability activist Paul Longmore (2003) attests that the consequence of these myriad restrictions is being forced to remain dependent on, and disempowered by, public assistance and social services agencies. Not incidentally, these agencies create numerous jobs in the name of surveillance and limiting the resources poor and disabled people can access.
Ideologies that hark back to conceptions of deserving and undeserving poor, and systemic racism, anti-Blackness, and classism therein, also remain prominent in how determinations are made. Despite overall similarities in work, health, and economic status between those approved for SSDI and those denied, an economic analysis found that one in four, or 25%, of denied applicants is Black, compared to one in nine, or approximately 12%, of denied applicants in the general population (Weaver, 2021). The number of denied Black applicants is also higher than the approximately 20% who are approved.
These findings are not surprising given insidious systemic anti-Blackness in the move to eliminate U.S. welfare in the 1980s and 1990s. Neoliberal reforms diverted countless poor and Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) to SSI by pathologizing them via the medical model of disability (Hansen, Bourgois, and Drucker, 2014).
Attempts to redress poverty through disability benefits further cause numerous indignities and injustices for poor people and BIPOCs receiving or applying for SSDI and SSI, including increased stigma as malingerers and pressures to perform disability (Pryma, 2017; Whittle et al., 2018). Access to SSI as reentry support for recently incarcerated people is further being promoted as a means to address systemic poverty and mental health impairments (Ware and Luper, 2019).
These systems and the prejudices they rely on increase deterioration of health and exacerbate the doubt and dismissal among medical providers that frequently results in the onset of more severe illness (Whittle et al., 2017). Furthermore, the compounding effects of anti-Blackness, racism, and classism on the already ableist disability benefit system increasingly impoverishes people already impacted by generational poverty (Young, 2021).
But, given how many people are denied and expected to live with little, if any, public assistance, those of us determined to be eligible for SSDI and/or SSI are the “lucky ones.” When being accepted into a biased and racist system that deliberately keeps people poor and dependent is equated with being among the lucky, it is beyond clear that change is critical.
Haphazard reform measures are not enough. Changes to SSDI and SSI that account for the multifactorial components of disability must also be part of broader efforts to address systemic injustices, such as carceral abolition, universal health care, and universal basic income. Greater protections and provisions for accessibility requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
A social and critical model of disability that accounts for an intersectional approach to justice with regard to dismantling anti-Blackness, racism, economic oppression, and white supremacy must be adopted and systemically implemented across medical, governmental, educational, and legal systems. Only by affecting the underlying structural and systemic barriers will real justice and equity for all people be realized.
One small but vital opportunity is to tell Congress to Support the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act to increase asset limits from $2,000 to $10,000 for individuals and from $3,000 to $20,000 for married couples. Under the bill asset limits will also be regularly increased with inflation.
Read my other posts in this series here:
U.S. Social Security & Disability Prejudice, Part I: My Story
U.S. Social Security & Disability Prejudice, Part II: The Medical Model of Disability
To learn more about the history of Social Security, read my posts:
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Sources
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Bethany K. Laurence, A. (2022, March 4). How much can you receive in SSI disability? www.disabilitysecrets.com. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www.disabilitysecrets.com/how-much-ssi-disability.html
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