Social Security Rolling Out Online Application for SSI

“For those who now have access to this online application, this will reduce a significant burden of trying to reach SSA on the phone or in a [Social Security] field office, especially because wait times can be long and unpredictable,” says Joel Eskovitz, senior director for Social Security and savings at the AARP Public Policy Institute. “This is a great first step, and hopefully it will soon be available to all SSI applicants, including those 65 and older and those with spouses.”

Other changes

This proposal comes amid other steps to simplify procedures for getting SSI, which, as a benefit for people in dire financial need, requires SSA to collect extensive documentation of applicants’ income, assets and living arrangements along with medical evidence demonstrating disability.

“We listened to feedback from SSI applicants that the overall process is lengthy, difficult to understand and asks similar questions multiple times,” an SSA spokesperson says. “The new, simplified SSI application focuses on collecting only the necessary information for basic eligibility.”

For example:

• For people with a My Social Security online account, the new SSI form pre-populates answers to basic questions with information already in the SSA system, including name, date of birth, citizenship status and the last four digits of their Social Security number.
• The form cuts the overall number of questions by more than half, from 54 to 23.
• The SSA now accepts digital signatures for commonly used forms and many types of evidence needed to process applications, eliminating much of the need to print, sign by hand and mail or fax paperwork.
• People applying for SSDI and SSI now need only document their most recent five years of work history. In June 2024, the SSA dropped a requirement that disability claimants produce 15 years of employment history for the agency to assess whether they could still do work they had done before.

In addition, as of Sept. 30, SSI applicants and recipients no longer need to report when family members or friends have bought them food. The SSA has historically considered such assistance as “in-kind support and maintenance,” a form of income that counts in determining SSI eligibility, but the agency announced new rules on in-kind support earlier this year. (Help with shelter costs such as rent or mortgage payments will still count as income for SSI purposes.)

Still burdensome

According to SSA data, applications for SSDI increased from a little over 2.3 million in the 2008 fiscal year, just before iClaim was introduced, to about 3 million in 2011. The share of claims that were filed online nearly tripled over the same period, from 11.1 percent to 32.9 percent. Today, around 60 percent of SSDI applications are filed online.

“It seems clear that it’s reduced burden on the applicants, and it’s increased the willingness for people to apply for benefits because they don’t need to go into a field office,” says Jack Smalligan, a senior policy fellow in the Income and Benefits Center at the Urban Institute. “It’s been disappointing to not be able to have those kinds of results for SSI for so many years.”

The online application may also make it easier for SSI claimants to get help from a family member or friend in filling out the form, since it will be less likely to require coordinating schedules for a field office visit.

Recent and pending changes notwithstanding, applying for SSI remains a complicated process, Eskovitz notes.

“You’re reducing some of the friction here, but there’s so many boxes to check,” especially in proving disability, he says. “The process will still require applicants to pull together their medical history and provide evidence dating back to the start of their impairment.”

Still, the SSA expects the streamlined form will reduce processing time for applications because there will be less, and less complicated, information to process. Currently, it takes about seven-and-a-half months on average for disability benefit applicants to get a decision on their initial claim, nearly double the average wait in the year before the pandemic.

Because the processing time is so long, Smalligan recommends that people considering an SSI claim not wait until the online application is widely available but rather make an appointment at a field office as soon as possible.

“Part of the advantage of starting the process is that you lock in a filing date,” which becomes the start date for payments if your SSI claim is approved, he says. “You don’t have to have all your forms when you start, or all the medical information. Start the process.”