On July 4, 2025, President Donald Trump enacted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). This far-reaching tax legislation modified various segments of the federal assistance system. Among the programs scrutinized during the legislative process was the Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
This is a cash transfer scheme administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA) intended for elderly adults, blind people, and people with disabilities. Their income and resources are below thresholds set by law.
Were SSI Benefits Cut by the One Big Beautiful Bill?
Contrary to what several defense organizations anticipated during the debate stage in Congress, the final text of the OBBBA did not introduce changes to the monthly SSI payment amounts or alter the program’s basic eligibility criteria.
The $2,000 resource limit for individuals, a policy in effect for decades and considered outdated by many social policy analysts, remained unchanged. There were also no changes to the income thresholds that determine eligibility for the benefit.
The law did incorporate provisions that indirectly affect the population dependent on the SSI. These modifications impact two main areas: access to savings tools enabled by law and guaranteed medical coverage through the Medicaid program, which most SSI beneficiaries access automatically or in parallel.
Changes to ABLE Accounts on the Obbba Legislation
One of the components with the greatest direct impact on SSI beneficiaries involves the so-called ABLE accounts (Achieving a Better Life Experience). These tax-advantaged savings instruments were created to allow people with disabilities to accumulate funds without those amounts being counted as resources for the purposes of assistance programs such as SSI or Medicaid.
The OBBBA raised the annual contribution limit to ABLE accounts to $19,000. Additionally, the legislative text made permanent the provision known as ABLE-to-Work, which allows holders of these accounts to make additional contributions with income from employment, and transfers from 529 accounts—commonly used to finance educational expenses— to ABLE accounts.
The standard also included contributions to ABLE accounts among the assets eligible for the Saver’s Credit, a federal tax benefit.
Prior to the enactment of the OBBBA, several of these provisions operated under temporary extensions that had to be periodically renewed by Congress, creating uncertainty for financial planners and families using these vehicles. The permanence of these rules eliminates that variable.
Medicaid Cuts Impact Health Coverage for the SSI Population
The OBBBA incorporated work or community activity requirements to access Medicaid. According to the approved text, individuals must prove that they are working, performing community service, or participating in job training programs for at least 80 hours per month, unless they meet the conditions to be exempt from this requirement.
SSI recipients, by virtue of their disability or advanced age, are among the groups that qualify for exemptions to these new requirements. However, industry analysts point out that cuts to federal Medicaid funding under the provisions of the law have a structural scope: they affect the operational capacity of the system as a whole, including hospitals, primary care centers and the health sector workforce that serves this population.
The tension between formal exemptions for vulnerable groups and the reduction in overall program funding is one of the most contentious issues surrounding the law’s implementation. States, which co-finance Medicaid with the federal government, will have to absorb a larger share of the costs due to the reduction in federal funding, which in some cases could lead to coverage restrictions.
Tax Deductions for Over-65 Has Limited Scope Among SSI Recipients
The OBBBA incorporated a $6,000 tax deduction for taxpayers over 65 years of age. This provision, framed within the modifications to the tax code, applies to those who file federal tax returns and represents relief for elderly sectors with income from various sources.
For SSI recipients whose sole or primary income comes from that program, the deduction has no practical application. SSI is not federally taxable income, and individuals who rely solely on it generally do not reach the income thresholds that require them to file a tax return. Therefore, this provision does not directly benefit most low-income SSI recipients.
There are cases where an SSI recipient also receives income from other sources—for example, payments from Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or part-time work—which could place him within the scope of the tax rule, but that situation corresponds to a more limited subset within the universe of recipients of the program.
