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poverty
This 1 Neat Trick Can Dramatically Reduce Homelessness
Supplemental Security Income checks should be increased to meet recipients’ needs.
Apr 12, 2025
Sarah’s situation was one we see a lot in eviction court. Hers was among the 3 of every 4 households whose incomes are low enough to qualify for a federal housing subsidy but do not receive it because we underfund the programs so dramatically. So Sarah had been living for a few years in a dilapidated house where her absentee landlord charged her well below market-rate rent—just $650 a month. The implicit bargain was that Sarah would not complain to the health department or anyone else about the caved-in ceilings, mold, broken appliances, and mice that came in through the many holes in the house’s rotting exterior.
That unholy arrangement unraveled when Sarah’s landlord sold the property to a buyer who discovered Sarah had no written lease and wanted to demolish the house. We met Sarah (not her real name) in court after she had ignored multiple notices to move.
“I know the judge is going to order me out of there,” she told us. But she had looked around at available rental units and couldn’t find anything for less than $900 a month. Which was a problem, because Sarah’s entire monthly income was only a few dollars more than that. “How am I supposed to live now?” she asked.
It's a good question.
A significant portion of our nation’s unhoused population are SSI recipients, limited to an income that doesn’t come close to covering the costs of housing, food, transportation, clothing, and other necessities.
Like 7.5 million other people in the United States, Sarah is a recipient of Supplemental Security Income, known as SSI. SSI is a federal program for persons who have little to no income or assets and are living with severe disabilities that leave them unable to work. Sarah, 67 years old, is legally blind, uses a wheelchair, and has multiple other chronic, debilitating conditions. That allows her to qualify for SSI.
But, to her point, it doesn’t allow her to live.
Sarah’s monthly SSI check is the maximum program amount of $967. Couples who are both eligible for SSI are maxed out at $1,450 per month. SSI recipients have to comply with tight restrictions on how much income they can make or assets they can own. Most are like Sarah, fully unable to work and with no other income. So they are condemned to poverty.
As Sarah was on the cusp of learning, SSI often condemns people to homelessness, too. A significant portion of our nation’s unhoused population are SSI recipients, limited to an income that doesn’t come close to covering the costs of housing, food, transportation, clothing, and other necessities.
“I’ve had many clients who received a monthly SSI check but still can’t afford the rent,” says Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homeless Law Center. “When there is no housing, people have no choice but to sleep outside.” That grim reality of sleeping outside brings with it a significant chance of death from exposure, assault, and untreated health crises.
Mountains of evidence point to the main cause of homelessness being the problem faced by Rabinowitz’s clients and ours: a straightforward inability to pay monthly rent.
“I want to be absolutely clear that the reason people become unhoused is that they do not have access to housing that they can afford,” says Brian Goldstone, anthropologist and author of the new book, There is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America. “The answer isn’t addiction or mental illness; it’s that they didn’t have access to housing they could afford.”
SSI: Hard to Get, Hard to Live on Once You Get It
As Sarah was learning, life on an SSI check means there is essentially no safe housing that she can afford. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Congress created the SSI program in 1972, the stated purpose was to “provide a positive assurance that the Nation’s aged, blind, and disabled people would no longer have to subsist on below poverty level incomes.” But the current SSI maximum benefit is well below the federal poverty line. The official poverty level itself is an underestimate of the costs incurred by people like Sarah who pay a “disability tax” of higher medical, transportation, and housing costs. That math is not mathing in particular for the women and persons of color who make up a disproportionate number of SSI recipients.
Because SSI in theory could ensure that all who cannot earn significant wages would receive a monthly stipend, it is sometimes compared to a universal basic income. But no one who has ever applied for SSI confuses the two. The program’s onerous financial and disability eligibility requirements make damn sure that there is nothing “universal” about SSI income. Less than half of all SSI applications are granted—less than a third of them at the initial application stage.
My and other service providers’ experience is that these systematic refusals occur despite the fact that the majority of SSI applicants we see are clearly eligible for the program. But the same disabilities and poverty-caused barriers that lead them to need SSI contribute to them getting snared in the red tape of the application process.
Just as we know that housing is the best response to homelessness, countless research studies confirm that increased income is a silver-bullet remedy for poverty.
Those who do successfully get enrolled in SSI face restrictive rules that all but guarantee they remain destitute. They are not allowed to receive more than $20 in cash or in-kind assistance from family or others. If a couple with disabilities marry, their combined monthly benefits are cut. Caps on savings leave SSI recipients unable to respond to life’s unexpected expenses like an uncovered medical cost or car repair. Ironically, this paternalism comes at a significant cost to taxpayers. SSI benefits are only 4% of the Social Security Administration’s outlay, but policing the program’s many recipient restrictions means SSI takes up 38% of the agency’s administrative costs.
SSI’s low benefit levels and many restrictions have been heavily criticized by poverty research and advocacy groups like the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Center for American Progress, and Brookings Institution. The organization Justice in Aging has long pushed for SSI reform.
“We need to improve the program by raising benefit levels, reducing barriers to access, and making it easier for people to afford the daily costs of living,” says Tracey Groninger, Justice in Aging’s director of economic security.
Legislation proposed in the last Congress aimed to do just that. The Supplemental Security Income Restoration Act, sponsored by 36 House members and endorsed by over 100 organizations, would have raised the SSI monthly benefit amounts to the federal poverty level and ratcheted back the prohibitive asset and outside income restrictions. In this Congress, the newly-introduced Savings Penalty Elimination Act would allow SSI recipients to keep more savings while retaining their eligibility.
The benefits-increase bill did not succeed, and has not yet been reintroduced. Hopefully, that changes soon. Just as we know that housing is the best response to homelessness, countless research studies confirm that increased income is a silver-bullet remedy for poverty. Increasing SSI benefits to a level that covers basic needs would have a dramatic effect on Sarah’s life, the lives of millions of others, and all of our communities.
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Argentina General Strike Demands End to Milei's 'Chainsaw' Austerity Policies
"The Milei government has picked a fight with workers and pensioners, and now they will feel the full force of organized labor," said one union leader.
Apr 10, 2025
Increasingly fed up with economic policies under which poverty and inflation have soared while vital social services, wages, and the peso have taken huge hits, disaffected Argentinians took to the streets of cities across the South American nation Wednesday for the third general strike of right-wing President Javier Milei's tumultuous 16-month presidency.
Led by the General Confederation of Labor (CGT)—an umbrella group of Argentinian unions—the "paro general," or general stoppage, drew workers, the unemployed, pensioners, educators, students, and others affected by Milei's severe austerity measures and his administration's plans for more deep cuts. Demonstrations continued throughout Thursday.
"In the face of intolerable social inequality and a government that ignores calls for better wages and a dignified standard of living for all, the workers are going on strike," CGT explained ahead of the action.
Airlines canceled hundreds of flights as air traffic controllers and other airport workers joined the strike; many schools, banks, and other offices shut down; and ports, some public transport, and other services ground to a halt.
"The only thing the administration has brought is a wave of layoffs across state agencies, higher poverty rates, and international debts, which are the biggest scam in Argentina's history," the Association of Airline Pilots (APA) said.
Rodolfo Aguiar, secretary general of the Association of State Workers (ATE), said Wednesday that "after this strike, they have to turn off the chainsaw; there's no room for more cuts," a reference to both Milei's ubiquitous campaign prop and his gutting of public programs upon which millions of Argentinians rely.
"Right now, the crisis Argentina is facing is worsening," Aguiar added, warning about government talks with the International Monetary Fund. "The rise in the dollar will quickly translate into food prices, and the new deal with the IMF is nothing more than more debt and more austerity measures."
Milei's government is nearing agreement on a $20 million IMF bailout, a deeply unpopular proposition in a country left reeling by the U.S.-dominated institution's missteps and intentional policies that benefit foreign investors while causing acute suffering for millions of everyday Argentinians. Argentina already owes $44 billion to the IMF.
"We already have experience as Argentinians that no agreement has been beneficial for the people," retiree and striker Rezo Mossetti told Agence France-Press in Buenos Aires Thursday, lamenting that his country keeps getting into "worse and worse" debt.
CGT decided to launch the general strike during a March 20 meeting that followed a pensioner-led March 12 protest outside the National Congress in Buenos Aires. After fringe elements including rowdy soccer fans known as "barrabravas" joined the protests and committed acts of violence and vandalism, police responded by attacking demonstrators with "less-lethal" weapons including water cannons and tear gas. A gas canister struck freelance photojournalist Pablo Grillo in the head, causing a severe brain injury that required urgent surgery.
This, after Argentinian Security Minister Patricia Bullrich invoked controversial measure empowering more aggressive use of force against protesters and rescinding a ban on police use of tear gas canisters. The Security Ministry also filed a criminal complaint dubiously accusing organizers of the March 12 protest of sedition.
Milei and his supporters have portrayed the general strike as a treasonous assault on the fragile Argentinian economy and those taking part in the day of action as lazy and jobless.
When Clarín, the country's largest newspaper, cited a study by the Argentine University of Enterprise claiming that the general strike would cost the national economy around $185 million per day, University of Buenos Aires professor Sergio Wischñevsky retorted: "Very revealing. It means that's the magnitude of the wealth workers produce every day. It's the best argument to stop ignoring workers."
As he has done with past protests against his rule, Milei has also framed the general strike as "an attack against the republic" and repeated his threat that police would "crack down" on demonstrators.
Orwellian use of state infrastructure by Milei's "anarcho-capitalist" gvmnt. in Argentina. As the 36 hr. general strike begins, signs & loudspeakers at train stations across Buenos Aires read: "Attack against the republic! The syndicalist caste punishes millions of Argentines who want to work."
[image or embed]
— Batallon Bakunin ( @batallonbakunin.bsky.social) April 10, 2025 at 4:11 AM
General strikers largely shrugged off the threats of police violence and state repression.
"The right to strike is a worker right and I think there has to be more strikes because the situation with this government is unsustainable," Hugo Velazuez, a 62-year-old worker striking in Buenos Aires, toldReuters.
While the Argentinian mainstream media's coverage of the general strike was largely muted, images posted by independent progressive media showed parts of central Buenos Aires appearing practically empty.
Workers around the world showed solidarity with striking Argentinians.
"The Milei government has picked a fight with workers and pensioners, and now they will feel the full force of organized labor," said Paddy Crumlin, president of the London-based International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), which boasts nearly 20 million members in 677 unions in 149 nations. "The international trade union movement stands ready to fight back with our Argentine comrades. We will not rest until these attacks on workers' rights are defeated."
ITF noted that various sectors of Argentina's transportation sector "are under direct threat of privatization," including the national commercial airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas, the National Highway Board, and the Argentinian Merchant Marine.
Milei—a self-described anarcho-capitalist who was elected in November 2023 on a wave of populist revulsion at the status quo—campaigned on a platform of repairing the moribund economy, tackling inflation, reducing poverty, and dismantling the state. He made wild promises including dollarizing Argentina's economy and abolishing the central bank.
However, the realities of leading South America's second-largest economy have forced Milei's administration to abandon or significantly curtail key agenda items, leading to accusations of neoliberalism and betrayal from the right and hypocrisy and rank incompetence from the left. According to most polling, Milei's approval rating has fallen from net positive to negative in just a few months.
Particularly galling to many left-of-center Argentinians is Milei's cozying up to far-right figures around the world, especially U.S. President Donald Trump.
Andrew Kennis, a Rutgers University media studies professor specializing in Latin America, noted similarities between the protests in Argentina and anti-Trump demonstrations in the United States.
"It's no coincidence that 5.2 million people were in the streets in all 50 states just this past Saturday and that the U.S. is now catching up with the mass resistance that's long been going on in Argentina," Kennis told Common Dreams Thursday.
Kennis—who this week published a deep dive on Milei's "destructive chainsaw theory" in Common Dreams—added that in the cases of both Milei and Trump, "there was no real honeymoon period, as there almost always is" for most new presidencies.
"In both countries, people were in the streets pretty damned fast and furiously," he added.
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A Cruel and Frozen Heart: RFK Jr. Decimates LIHEAP Heating Assistance Program
Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary has overseen an attack on the program that helps millions of low-income individuals and families stay warm in winter and cool in summer. Does it get worse than this?
Apr 04, 2025
President Donald Trump has caused so much devastation over the last several weeks that it is hard to calculate the loss. It is easy to lose sight of the people who are being hurt. Earlier this week, the Trump administration's Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a vast restructuring of the agency. As a result, literally thousands of workers were fired and entire sections of HHS eliminated and countless programs—spanning the gamut from world health to food safety—negatively impacted.
One of the programs devastated was the Low-Income Heating Assistance Program (LIHEAP) which helps low-income individuals and families pay for heating or cooling homes. According to the New York Times, the entire staff of LIHEAP was fired. LIHEAP helps over six million low-income people and has an annual budget of $4.1 billion.
Over the years, both Republicans and Democrats have supported LIHEAP. The program found supporters in New England who depended on LIHEAP for heating assistance and those in the southwest who used the assistance to help cool their homes. Those days of bipartisan cooperation are long gone.
Unless the cuts to LIHEAP are reversed, April 2025 will end up being a very cruel month for the millions of Americans who depend on LIHEAP...
No one should have been surprised by the severe cuts to LIHEAP. The program was targeted by Project 2025 and by the House Republican Study Committee’s proposed budget last year. Interestingly, this position puts the GOP at odds with utilities/energy companies which support LIHEAP.
In terms of bureaucracy, the LIHEAP staff was very small (25 people) when compared with overall staffing at HHS. Given the number of people LIHEAP helps, the program seems very efficient. Furthermore, LIHEAP serves a vital—that is, life-saving—purpose. The Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey shows that families across the country are having problems affording their energy costs. In October of last year, Louisiana (31%), West Virginia (28.%), and Massachusetts (27%) topped the charts in states with the highest percentage of adults in households that were unable to pay an energy bill in full in the last 12 months.
Congress has already approved $4.1 billion for LIHEAP subsidies and implementation costs for the current fiscal year and about 90% of that amount has already been awarded to the states who administer the grants to individuals in need. However, it is unclear how the rest of the funds will be disbursed as there is no staff to administer the program. It is anyone’s guess as to what happens when the money runs out.
One thing is for sure: If LIHEAP is eliminated, people will die and these will be the most vulnerable among us. In case you are interested in proof of this common-sense conclusion, check out the paper “The Mortality Effects Of Winter Heating Prices” in the Economic Journal.
On Thursday, Kennedy told ABC News that some of the HHS cuts had been made in error and would be rescinded. This whole situation will be clarified when Kennedy testifies on April 10 about the HHS reorganization before the Senate Health Committee. Hopefully, LIHEAP will be one of the programs that was cut in error. Given the fact that Project 2025 singled out LIHEAP, this may be a forlorn hope.
Written just over a hundred years ago, T.S. Elliot's The Wasteland proffered that “April is the cruelest month.” Unless the cuts to LIHEAP are reversed, April 2025 will end up being a very cruel month for the millions of Americans who depend on LIHEAP to stay warm in their homes and survive in this world.
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