Kilili: SSI Recipients to Get Automatic Recovery Rebates by Direct Deposit

Statement

ongressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan said efforts to have the U.S. Treasury issue $1,200 "recovery rebates" automatically to Supplemental Security Income recipients have been successful.

"Treasury decided today to issue most payments automatically to those receiving SSI," Sablan said. "The recovery rebates that Congress included as part of last month's Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act--the CARES Act--will be direct deposited into bank accounts just like their monthly SSI payments."

There are approximately 1,018 SSI recipients in the Marianas. Treasury expects the payments will be made no later than early May.

An exception is for SSI recipients, who have dependent children under age 17. Those recipients will need to use the "Non-Filers Enter Info Here" portal at IRS.Gov to enter social security numbers and other basic information about their children in order to get an additional $500 per child along with the $1,200 individual payment. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the Department would get payments to individuals with children "as quickly as possible."

Additionally, any new beneficiaries since January 1, 2020, of SSI benefits will need to go to the IRS's Non-Filers website to enter their information.

Sablan and over one hundred other Democratic members of Congress began pushing Treasury, soon after the CARES Act was signed, to issue recovery rebate checks to Social Security and SSI beneficiaries and to veterans on pensions automatically and by direct deposit to bank accounts. See the April 3 congressional letter here. The Treasury Department has not yet decided how to manage payments to veterans.

Supplemental Security Income is a federal cash assistance program that provides monthly payments to low-income aged, blind, or disabled persons in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the Northern Mariana Islands. SSI was a benefit negotiated in the Marianas Covenant of Political Union with the United States.

Of the 1,018 Marianas recipients in December 2018, 147 were aged, 5 blind, and 886 disabled.

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