China’s New Leap : An Embarrassment to Scrooge

Dr. Otis R. Bowen, the secretary of health and human services, has acted with admirable promptness to void a punishing restriction on aid to the disabled and the elderly poor. But his quick action is no substitute for congressional action.

There is a punitive, regressive element to legislation controlling the Supplementary Security Income element of Social Security. Under its provisions, old people face deductions from the already-modest SSI payments if they get in-kind help from nonprofit organizations. The estimated value of gifts like food, clothing and shelter is deducted from their SSI payments up to a maximum of one-third of the payments. Happily, Congress acted three years ago to suspend that regulation, then failed to renew the suspension. The exemption expired at the end of September, and the Social Security Administration, after notifying voluntary organizations, reinstituted the regulation.

News of this in the New York Times stirred controversy in Washington. Bowen, who had not been informed that the regulation was being reinstituted, used his extraordinary authority to suspend the rule for six months to give Congress time to do what it should have done long before.

At present, 4.3 million of the 38 million persons on Social Security receive SSI payments. To qualify, they must have liquid assets of not more than $1,800, or $2,700 in the case of a couple, although the limit does not count the value of car and home. The maximum federal SSI payment is $340 a month for an individual and $510 for a couple, but many states supplement this. In California the state adds up to $220 for an individual and up to $529 for a couple, depending on other income, for its 733,000 SSI recipients.

Any way it is calculated, SSI supports living at a minimum standard, and to force reductions in it to take account of gifts of clothing, food and shelter would embarrass even Scrooge.