Sponsors (35)
Official title: To amend title XVI of the Social Security Act to update eligibility for the supplemental security income program, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 5, 2026 by Adelita S. Grijalva · Last progress March 5, 2026
The bill modernizes and expands SSI (raising thresholds, indexing benefits, clarifying exclusions, and extending coverage to territories) and simplifies some administrative rules to help low‑income, elderly, disabled, and tribal beneficiaries, but does so at meaningful fiscal cost and with increased administrative complexity, potential impacts on benefit predictability, and some privacy and eligibility‑timing risks for certain groups.
Millions of low-income SSI recipients (including people with disabilities and elderly Americans) will receive higher, more inflation‑protected payments because SSI benefit levels, income exclusions, and earned‑income protections are raised and indexed to the HHS poverty guideline and CPI–E.
Residents of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa will become eligible for SSI cash benefits, giving low‑income elderly, blind, and disabled territory residents a new federal safety‑net payment.
People receiving short‑term assistance (including many people with disabilities) can exclude that aid from SSI resource counts for 21 months instead of 9, reducing the risk of temporary benefit interruptions during transitions.
Several provisions expand SSI eligibility or increase payments (resource limits, exclusions, indexing, territory expansion, and clarified exclusions), which will raise federal SSI outlays and create budgetary pressures for taxpayers.
Widespread statutory changes require major administrative updates—system programming, staff training, and interagency coordination—that will impose short‑term costs, workload increases, and the risk of processing delays across SSA and state agencies.
Removing the statutory rule that fixed Social Security payment timing weakens a legal protection and could make benefit payments less predictable for seniors and low‑income retirees if SSA changes schedules.
Based on analysis of 13 sections of legislative text.
Overhauls SSI rules: raises and indexes payment and resource levels, extends exclusions, expands territorial eligibility, updates marital rules, and adds tribal‑benefit protections.
Makes broad changes to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program: raises several SSI dollar amounts and links future increases to the CPI–E, changes how benefits for married couples are calculated, extends certain resource exclusions, and expands SSI eligibility and rules to include four U.S. territories. It also updates how marital status is determined, treats some retirement plan assets and tribal general welfare benefits as excluded, modifies treatment of sponsor support and state tax refunds, and removes a dedicated-account mechanism. Most provisions take effect for calendar years after 2026 or on a single effective date set to the first day of the first calendar month after one year from enactment. The bill changes benefit formulas, eligibility and counting rules, administrative reporting to State Medicaid agencies, and creates new indexing rules for future SSI amounts.