Sponsors (30)
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 strengthens and modernizes SSI—raising exclusions, increasing and indexing benefits, expanding eligibility (including to U.S. territories and tribal recipients), and clarifying rules—providing meaningful relief to many low‑income and disabled Americans while increasing federal costs and creating administrative, privacy, and transitional risks that must be managed.
Nationwide SSI recipients (especially low-income people with disabilities and seniors) will get larger, more inflation-protected benefits and higher resource/income exclusions because the bill raises SSI resource limits and income exclusions and ties thresholds to automatic indexing/HHS poverty guidelines.
Residents of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa gain access to SSI cash benefits, giving low-income elderly, blind, and disabled territory residents regular federal payments and legal parity in eligibility.
SSI recipients receiving short-term assistance (including many people with disabilities) can exclude that assistance from resources for 21 months (vs. 9), reducing risk of benefit interruptions during temporary assistance periods.
Taxpayers and federal budget makers face materially higher long‑term SSI outlays and potential deficit pressure because multiple provisions expand eligibility and raise benefits.
The Social Security Administration and state agencies will face substantial administrative and implementation costs, system updates, staff training, and increased workload that could cause transitional delays or processing backlogs.
Social Security's new authority to change benefit payment timing could make benefit payments less predictable for seniors and low-income beneficiaries and may reduce statutory timing protections, complicating household budgeting.
Based on analysis of 13 sections of legislative text.
Raises and indexes SSI dollar amounts, ties post‑2026 benefits to poverty guidelines, expands SSI to four territories, and adds key income/resource exclusions (retirement, tribal welfare).
Modernizes and expands the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) system by raising statutory dollar amounts, indexing them to CPI–E after 2026, eliminating some complex payment-account rules, aligning marital status rules with Social Security Title II, and extending resource and income exclusions for certain payments. It also extends SSI eligibility and related statutory treatment to four U.S. territories, clarifies treatment of tribal general welfare payments and retirement plan assets for SSI means-testing, and requires information-sharing with State Medicaid agencies. The changes take effect on the first day of the first calendar month that begins after a one-year period following enactment and include multiple technical and substantive edits to SSI income/resource rules, benefit-setting methodology (linking future benefits to HHS poverty guidelines), and statutory definitions affecting noncitizens, spouses, and territory residents.