Sponsors (29)
Introduced March 5, 2026 by Adelita S. Grijalva · Last progress March 5, 2026
The bill substantially expands and modernizes SSI—raising exclusions, indexing benefits, and extending coverage to U.S. territories—providing meaningful relief to many low-income, elderly, and disabled Americans while increasing federal costs and creating administrative, privacy, and transitional risks for beneficiaries and agencies.
Millions of SSI recipients (low-income individuals, people with disabilities, and seniors) will receive larger, more inflation-protected benefits because resource limits, general and earned income exclusions are raised and SSI payments are tied to HHS poverty guidelines (including removal of the marriage penalty for couples).
Residents of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa gain access to federal SSI cash benefits, reducing poverty and improving income support in those territories.
Low-income SSI recipients (including many people with disabilities) can exclude short-term assistance from countable resources for 21 months instead of 9, helping them stay eligible during temporary aid and avoid benefit interruptions.
Taxpayers and the federal budget will face materially higher SSI outlays because of expanded eligibility, higher exclusions, and benefit increases (including territorial expansion), increasing budgetary pressure and potential need for offsets.
The Social Security Administration, state agencies, and staff will face significant system changes, training needs, and short-term workloads from implementing numerous rule and IT updates, which could cause processing delays and temporary service disruptions for beneficiaries.
Social Security beneficiaries (especially seniors and low-income retirees) could lose the statutory guarantee of a specific payment cadence and face less predictable or less frequent payments if SSA changes payment timing, complicating household budgeting.
Based on analysis of 13 sections of legislative text.
Rewrites many SSI rules: raises and indexes benefit and resource amounts after 2026, expands SSI to four U.S. territories, aligns marital rules with Title II, and changes income/resource counting (adds tribal and retirement exclusions).
Makes many changes to Supplemental Security Income (SSI) rules: raises and indexes key dollar amounts after 2026, changes how marital status is determined for eligibility, expands SSI to Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa, and changes what counts as income and resources (including new exclusions for tribal general welfare and retirement plans). It also lengthens some temporary resource exclusions, removes a dedicated-account mechanism, clarifies treatment of certain state tax refunds, and requires SSA to share information with State Medicaid agencies. Most changes take effect about one year after enactment (on the first day of the first calendar month after that one-year period); the new dollar amounts and indexing begin for calendar years after 2026. The bill will directly affect low-income people who receive or apply for SSI, people with disabilities and seniors, residents of four U.S. territories, tribal members receiving general welfare benefits, and federal/state administrators who implement SSI and Medicaid rules.