Most people think of Social Security as a program for older Americans, and for good reason: it serves more than 52 million seniors, and is the nation’s largest anti-poverty program.
But Social Security also benefits children: approximately 2.5 million minor children receive Social Security survivor benefits following the death of a parent. Child survivor benefits were added to the Social Security Act in 1939, just four years after the original legislation was enacted into law — meaning that serving bereaved children has been a core component of the program for almost 90 years.
Surviving children and their caregivers can face tremendous financial hardship after the death of a parent. Such economic insecurity then leads to other negative outcomes for children in nearly every facet of their lives. Fortunately, most bereaved children qualify for Social Security survivor benefits. Research shows that receiving these benefits helps mitigate the negative economic effects associated with their parent’s death, so that bereaved children can go on to live successful lives despite losing a parent during childhood. In this way, the survivor benefits act exactly as they are intended: social insurance against the loss of a parent.
Unfortunately, research also suggests roughly one million eligible surviving children are not reached by the Social Security system. This failure may happen, in part, because caregivers do not know the child in their care qualifies for benefits. Recently, the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB), a nonpartisan group of Social Security experts, analyzed data from the University of Southern California’s Understanding America Study to determine why this gap exists. The SSAB found that 83% of participants in the study correctly understood that survivor benefits were available to children, but also determined that this understanding varied across demographic groups. In its report, the SSAB also made recommendations to improve access and increase awareness of survivor benefits.
The SSAB offered commonsense steps to improve access to child survivor benefits that the Social Security Administration can implement even in this budget-constrained environment. For instance, the panel said, SSA should make the application available online. This change would help families get their earned benefits faster, make it easier for caregivers to complete the application, and would lighten the workload on already-strained SSA staff, freeing them up to assist customers in-person or over the phone with other matters. The Social Security retirement and disability applications are already online and can serve as models for migrating the survivor benefits application online. SSA should also allow applicants to self-schedule appointments online, the recommendations said, instead of having to call the SSA 800 number.
To increase awareness of child survivor benefits, the SSAB recommends SSA relaunch a previously cancelled outreach effort and evaluate the effectiveness of this outreach. The Board also recommends that SSA use the data it collects to partner with states to identify eligible children. It suggests SSA enter data-sharing agreements with states, if necessary, so that SSA can receive data on children who have lost a parent and contact families to make them aware of survivor benefits and eligibility requirements.
First Focus on Children urges the Social Security Administration to implement these recommendations promptly. Members of Congress also should join the SSAB in urging SSA to take immediate steps to increase the number of eligible children who receive survivor benefits.