Yambo, who has never paid his own bills in his life, is planning a rule change to cut Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits and strip eligibility for hundreds of thousands of low-income older people and severely disabled adults and children. Via The Center On Budget and Policy Priorities:

Nearly 400,000 SSI beneficiaries living with family or friends experiencing their own financial struggles likely would have their benefits cut — typically by hundreds of dollars per month — or lose eligibility altogether.
Under the rule, nearly 400,000 SSI beneficiaries living with family or friends experiencing their own financial struggles likely would have their benefits cut — typically by hundreds of dollars per month — or lose eligibility altogether.[2] And yet the average annual savings from these benefit cuts would barely pay for a single day of the massive tax cuts for the wealthy that are part of the Republican megabill enacted in July.[3] At the same time, the rule would make it harder for eligible people to get and keep SSI, creating new red tape for beneficiaries and more work for the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) already depleted and overburdened staff.

Currently, very low-income disabled or older people who receive SSI can have their benefits reduced by up to one-third (about $300 a month) if they receive “in-kind support and maintenance,” including a place to stay. Similarly, SSI recipients can have their benefits reduced based on the income of their parents (if they are under 18) or spouse, under the assumption that they will contribute to an SSI beneficiary’s living expenses. However, these reductions don’t apply to beneficiaries who live in a household that receives “public assistance,” including food assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). That’s because households financially precarious enough to qualify for those benefits can’t afford to financially support SSI recipients. These rules help families support their elderly or disabled relatives, including by allowing them to live in their homes, reducing the likelihood that they experience homelessness or need institutional care.

SSI’s public assistance household rule has been updated to reflect the ways struggling families make ends meet — but the Trump Administration proposal would return the program to the outdated criteria first established in 1980. Forty-five years ago, the two main programs SSI now uses to identify low-income families — the programs now known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and SNAP — played dramatically different roles. Then, TANF’s predecessor, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), was a reasonable proxy for families who needed “all of their income” to meet their basic needs, the intent of the rule. But far fewer households now receive TANF cash assistance than received AFDC over four decades ago.[4]

By contrast, many more low-income households use SNAP today than received the then-recently created Food Stamps program in 1980. Now, SNAP is the best proxy for families who need all of their income to meet their basic needs. To reflect that, SSA finalized a long-overdue update to the rule last year, adding SNAP to the list of qualifying programs that indicate a family is struggling to meet basic expenses. This common-sense update is consistent with many other programs that use SNAP participation to identify low-income families who need additional supports. For example, children who live in SNAP-participating households are automatically eligible for free school meals, and individuals receiving SNAP are often automatically eligible to receive low-income home energy assistance.

Yambo doesn't like the homeless living on the street, but seems to be doing everything he can to increase their numbers. I suppose the next step is to helpfully move them all into tent concentration camps in places like Florida. Oh, what a brave new world!