2026 Annual Report of the SSI Program

II. Highlights

The SSI program is a nationwide Federal assistance program administered by SSA that guarantees a minimum level of income for aged, blind, or disabled individuals. This section presents a review of current initiatives and improvements, a summary of important legislative changes to the program in the last year, highlights of recent SSI program experience, and a summary of the key results from the 25-year projections.

A. Current Initiatives and Improvements

For more than 50 years, the SSI program has provided a financial safety net for aged, blind, and disabled Americans with limited resources who rely on SSI benefits to meet basic needs of food and shelter. The program plays a crucial role in the lives of about eight million people and is funded from general tax revenues. Accordingly, we are making a renewed effort to administer the program as accurately and efficiently as possible and remain committed to effectively overseeing the program, protecting taxpayer dollars, and maintaining the public’s trust. We are also dedicated to ensuring that our services are accessible and responsive to the needs of those we serve in every service channel.

In an agency first, the Commissioner named a lead executive and established the SSI Improvement office to improve the service we provide to our recipients. We’ve made the program easier to navigate—for the people who rely on it and for the SSA technicians who support them. Since being established in September 2025, the team has made many improvements including updating, clarifying, and simplifying policy instructions; deploying technology to better administer the program; expanding the use of the Access to Financial Institution (AFI) tool; and using technology and call segmentation to better serve our customers. All of these improvements have led to reduced improper payments, higher levels of accuracy, and better, faster, and higher quality service for our customers.

Program Integrity

We’re committed to preventing improper payments—whether overpayments or underpayments—by identifying the root causes and addressing them promptly. When overpayments occur, we work diligently to identify and recover them as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The statutory requirements for means testing SSI payments present challenges to making accurate payments. We compute the correct monthly SSI payment amount based on changes in a recipient’s income, resources, living arrangements, and other circumstances. The law requires us to determine SSI eligibility and calculate payments monthly, generally issuing payments on the first of the month for eligibility in that month. Even if a payment was correct when paid, changes that happen later in that month can affect the payment due, resulting in improper payments.

Recipients and representative payees have an important responsibility to timely report changes that may affect eligibility or payment amounts. Timely and accurate recipient reporting ensures the accuracy of their benefit payment and the integrity of the SSI program. However, changes are sometimes not reported promptly, or at all, which can present challenges in administering the program. We have renewed our focus on working with recipients and their representatives to promote understanding and compliance, so that we can continue to serve the public effectively and uphold the trust placed in us.

To address these challenges, it is important we have strong program integrity tools to detect unreported changes that may affect SSI eligibility and payments. One of our most effective tools for protecting and preserving program integrity is the SSI non-medical redetermination process, under which we conduct scheduled reviews of all non-medical factors of eligibility to determine whether the recipient is still eligible for SSI and if their payment amount is correct. We are on track to complete at least 2.6 million redeterminations in fiscal year 2026.

To maximize resources and limit the burden to the public, we use a statistical model to prioritize redeterminations. This allows us to focus on recipients who are most likely to have a change that affects eligibility or the amount of benefits. We have also prioritized early initiation of redeterminations and full medical continuing reviews for child beneficiaries before they reach their 18th birthday. These redeterminations save billions of program dollars with a comparatively small investment of administrative funds.

Ongoing Efforts

Embracing a digital-first approach, we recognize that technology is the great enabler in supporting our efforts to improve the experience of our recipients, pay benefits accurately each month, and enhance the efficiency of our processes. On December 31, 2024, we published the Final Rule Use of Electronic Payroll Data to Improve Program Administration outlining our intent to obtain wage data electronically from a payroll data provider. We began receiving data through the exchange on April 7, 2025 using a phased implementation and reaching the full authorized population in September 2025. We use data from the exchange to update SSI records timely. This increases the accuracy of payment amounts, reduces time field office technicians spend verifying wages and manually entering data, and reduces reporting responsibilities for individuals who earn income that could affect their eligibility or payment amount. We continue to work with the payroll data provider to enhance the data exchange and make it more efficient, increase authorizations of recipients and deemors, while also evaluating new data solutions they introduce to reach workers not currently covered by the exchange.

We use the Access to Financial Institution (AFI) tool, with an individual’s consent, to identify and verify bank account information and detect undisclosed bank account balances with participating financial institutions. In August 2025, we implemented a zero-dollar AFI tolerance for SSI 65+ aged claim allowances before adjudicating payment. In April 2026, we similarly implemented zero-dollar tolerance AFI verifications for all SSI blind and disabled allowances, and we will explore opportunities to expand AFI capabilities further. Excess resources are by far the number one reason for improper payments in the SSI program. Moving to the zero-dollar tolerance enables the agency to check for resources beyond the allowable limit and ensure we are not making payments to ineligible individuals.

We continue to identify other opportunities to use technology to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the SSI program.

Conclusion

The SSI program continues to provide support for millions of vulnerable individuals. We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that SSI payments are accurate.

B. SSI Legislation Since The 2025 Annual Report

Alaska Native Settlement Trust Eligibility Act

Temporarily excludes certain payments from a settlement trust to an aged, blind, or disabled Alaskan Native or descendant of an Alaskan Native from being used to determine the individual’s eligibility for need-based Federal programs (including SSI), for a five-year period beginning on the date of enactment (July 7, 2025 to July 6, 2030).

To provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of H. Con. Res. 14

Section 70115 - Permanently allows the designated beneficiary of an Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) account to make additional contributions to their ABLE account (subject to certain requirements and limitations) that are subject to an increased contribution limit.

This section also increases the contribution limit to an ABLE account by adding one additional year to the annual adjustment for the cost of living.

Section 70116 - Permanently extends the qualified retirement savings contribution tax credit for contributions made to an ABLE account by the account’s designated beneficiary. Further, this section increases the maximum amount of the tax credit to $2,100 (from $2,000).

Section 70117 - Makes permanent the provision that allows nontaxable rollovers from a qualified tuition program (529 plan) to an ABLE account, subject to certain requirements.

C. Recent Program Experience

SSI program experience during the past year included the following:

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During calendar year 2025, 1.30 million individuals applied for SSI benefits based on blindness or disability, a decrease of 6 percent as compared to the 1.38 million who applied in 2024. Additionally, about 142,000 individuals applied for SSI benefits based on age, a decrease of 13 percent as compared to the roughly 163,000 who applied in 2024.

•	In 2025, about 672,000 applicants became new recipients of SSI benefits, an increase of 3 percent as compared to the roughly 655,000 who became new recipients in 2024.

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Each month on average during calendar year 2025, 7.3 million individuals received Federal SSI benefits. This group was composed of 1.1 million aged recipients and 6.1 million blind or disabled recipients, of which about 62,000 were blind. Of these 6.1 million blind or disabled recipients, 1.0 million were under age 18, 3.9 million were aged 18 to 64, and 1.3 million were aged 65 or older.

•	Federal expenditures for payments under the SSI program in calendar year 2025 totaled $65.0 billion, an increase from $63.1 billion in 2024.

•

Each month on average during calendar year 2025, 1.3 million individuals received federally administered State supplementation payments. This group was composed of approximately 401,000 aged recipients and approximately 921,000 blind or disabled recipients, of which about 16,000 were blind. Of these approximately 921,000 blind or disabled recipients, about 111,000 were under age 18, about 532,000 were aged 18 to 64, and about 278,000 were aged 65 or older.

•	State expenditures for federally administered State supplements, excluding fees for Federal administration, totaled $3.4 billion in calendar year 2025, roughly the same level as in 2024.

•	The cost SSA incurred to administer the SSI program in FY 2025 was $5.0 billion, which was roughly 7 percent of total federally administered SSI expenditures.1

•	In January 2026, 7.4 million individuals received federally administered monthly SSI benefits averaging $737. Of these, 7.2 million received monthly Federal SSI payments averaging $711, and 1.3 million received monthly State supplementation payments averaging $212.

D. Key Results From The 25-Year Projections

The major findings in the 25-year projections prepared for this report are:

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The number of applications decreased from 2010 through 2021, increased moderately from 2021 through 2024, and decreased again in 2025. We project that the number of applications will increase substantially by 2031, reaching levels more consistent with longer-term historical experience, and then remain at roughly this level thereafter.

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The SSI recipient population has declined in recent years, following trends in applications and new recipients. We project that the Federal SSI recipient population will increase to 7.6 million by 2050. As a percentage of the total Social Security area population, we project the number of Federal SSI recipients to trend gradually downward during the 25-year projection period, from 2.07 percent in 2026 to 2.05 percent by 2050. This decline occurs for several reasons, including that the percent of the population potentially eligible for SSI based on their citizenship and residency status is projected to decline slightly in the future.

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We project that Federal expenditures for SSI payments in calendar year 2026 will increase by $1.3 billion to $66.3 billion, an increase of 2.0 percent from 2025 levels. In dollars adjusted by the Consumer Price Index to 2026 levels, we pro­ject that SSI program outlays will increase to $69.1 billion in 2050, a real increase of 0.1 percent per year.

•

Federal SSI expenditures were 0.21 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2025. We project that such expenditures will stay roughly level in 2026 and decline thereafter to 0.15 percent of GDP by 2050. Federal SSI expenditures are projected to grow more slowly than GDP both because the share of the population that will be potentially eligible for SSI will decline and because the maximum Federal SSI benefit is projected to grow more slowly on average than the growth in average income in the future.

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1

Administrative costs do not include the costs of beneficiary services provided to recipients through State vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies and employment networks for VR services and payments under the Ticket to Work program.