WHEREAS due to the wide-spread discrimination in employment, many blind persons must depend on Supplemental Security Income to provide all or most of their livelihood; and
WHEREAS Federal SSI benefits are manifestly inadequate to provide a livelihood for an individual, it being $189,40 for an individual each month; and
WHEREAS forty-two states now provide supplements to SSI; and
WHEREAS four states currently provide supplements to blind recipients, which are larger than those grants to individuals who are qualified for Supplemental Security Income payments under categories of aged or disabled, there being in recognition of the fact that blindness is a serious economic liability; and
WHEREAS the Social Security Administration sustains all administrative costs for the Supplemental Security Income Program even in those states which provide a supplement: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the members of the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland in Convention assembled in the City of Baltimore, Maryland on this 28th day of October that the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland enthusiastically supports and vigorously endorses a reasonable supplement to the monthly SSI benefits for blind Maryland recipients; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this resolution be sent to every member of the Maryland General Assembly.
ADOPTED BY THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND OF MARYLAND
Baltimore, Maryland, October 1978