Early this morning the US Social Security Administration (SSA) released its most recent statistics on recipients and payments.
The Supplemental Security Income Program (SSI) Average Monthly Payment decreased a couple of dollars from April, reaching almost U$526 per payment. Payments from the SSI have been steadily growing up since October 2012 when the Average payment was U$516. Such increase represents a figure of 2.4% more money for SSI recipients per year, which is slightly over US inflation increase (2.0% for July 2013). The most recent and significant increase in payments was given in April this year when SSI Average payment climbed 2.24% in reference to October 2012 payments levels. Roughly, SSI’s Average Payments have had an average increase of 2.03% per month since the beginning of 2013.
Total number of recipients also went up past July following a trend initiated since November of 2012. Today SSA’s release reports that 8,352,764 persons in US take some form of Federal or State aid. The whole pie of SSI’s recipients comprises a share of 46% people who are either disable or blind; 32% of beneficiaries are the ages between 18 and 64; only 14% of the recipients are 65 or older and just 8% of beneficiaries are under the age of 18. Changes in the former categories of eligibility were not significant, neither at the Federal level nor for the States accounts.
Total payments made by the SSI Program amounted 4.7 billion for the last month of July 2013. SSA’s total payments account has increased at an average rate of 4.65% per month since November of 2012. Both an increase in the number of Recipients and the increase in Average Payment may have contributed to the 4.65% average increase rate. Furthermore, the factor that seems to be pressuring up SSI cost is the number of recipients. The correlation R for a simple linear regression between the variables number Recipients and Total Payments is higher than the correlation in the linear regression between % change in Average Payment and Total Payments, R= .882 and R=.808 respectively.
Next release and new data are expected for September of 2013. For access to the full tables
click here.
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