SSI: trends and changes, 1974-80

By the end of 1980, the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program was making monthly cash assistance payments, averaging $170, to almost 4.2 million aged, blind, and disabled persons. When SSI payments began in January 1974, the number of recipients was 3.2 million and the average payment was $117. Since 1975, both SSI payments and Social Security benefits have been automatically adjusted each year to correspond with increases in the Consumer Price Index. A number of other trends in addition to growth can be discerned in the size of the population served, as well as in their categorical, geographic, and age distributions. This article discusses some of these trends and changes, using program data for the end of each calendar year through 1980. It also presents a brief summary of the program at the end of that period.