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Company: Clear Channel Outdoor (CCO)

Business: Clear Channel Outdoor is an out-of-home advertising company that offers a variety of advertising services, including through billboards, street furniture displays, transit displays and airport displays. It also sells street furniture equipment, provides cleaning and maintenance services and operates public bike programs. Clear Channel is broken into the following segments, which account for the following percentage of revenue: America (45%); Airports (10%, in the U.S. and Caribbean); Europe-North (23%); Europe-South (19%); and Other (3%, includes Latin America).
Stock Market Value: $661M ($1.37 per share)

Activist: Legion Partners

Percentage Ownership: 5.08%
Average Cost: $1.98
Activist Commentary: Legion is an activist investor whose managing directors are Chris Kiper, previously of Shamrock Activist Value Fund, and Ted White, previously of European activist fund Knight Vinke. Legion prefers to do its activist work behind the scenes, resorting to a proxy fight if amicable discussions do not go well. The firm has significant experience with consumer retail companies.

What’s happening?

Legion sent a letter to Clear Channel’s board, expressing concern with the scope and pace of the company’s current strategic review process. The firm also argued that the board needed to consider a broader strategic review process, including potential divestitures of other non-core assets and select U.S. assets, or a sale of the entire company.

Behind the scenes

CCO is one of the largest and highest quality out-of-home (“OOH”) advertising companies. The OOH business has long-term growth prospects and a strong business moat, especially among billboard assets. Clear Channel effectively has two business lines – Americas and Europe, each with very different business models and valuations. The European business works on fixed limited-term contracts with municipalities, which are rebid at maturity. Because of this, the European business trades at around a multiple of 8 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Most of the U.S. business is billboards, which the company owns, and accordingly trades closer to 13 times to 15 times EBITDA. Moreover, these billboards are in the process of being converted to digital, which will allow each billboard to generate approximately four times more revenue and six to 10 times more EBITDA. However, this conversion requires the approval of each municipality and will not be a quick process.

Despite its market leading position, Clear Channel’s shares have seriously underperformed since its separation from iHeartMedia in May 2019. CCO is currently trading 79% below the pre-deal share price and 65% below its peers since the separation. CCO’s underperformance has been linked to several factors, but is largely driven by the company’s high leverage, which amplifies volatility, and the sub-optimized conglomerate structure, which increases complexity. This has led to a misunderstanding by the market of the intrinsic value of the underlying assets, which should be significantly higher than what is implied by the current stock price. Legion Partners conducted a sum-of-the-parts analysis based on 2024 adjusted EBITDA estimates which implies an upside of 230% (implied valuation of $3.57 compared to $1.08 as of May 12). The firm thinks this could be unlocked as the company transitions to a U.S. pure play and reduces its leverage. Legion highlighted that while multiples for publicly traded OOH peers have compressed recently given potential macroeconomic slowdown concerns, it has seen that private market multiples for OOH assets are robust. Legion thinks that given quick synergies, industry consolidation is an accretive pursuit for any OOH player.
Legion has been actively engaged with the company for the past two years and most recently, had a meeting with management on May 12, where Legion expressed its concerns with the pace and scope of the company’s strategic review process. Specifically, Clear Channel has been prioritizing the sale of assets within Europe-South, even though the significantly larger part of the business is Europe-North. Moreover, since this strategic review of Europe began in December 2021, Clear Channel has announced the sales of businesses in Italy, Spain and Switzerland. This is concerning since as a fixed-contract business, the value goes down the closer the contracts get to maturity. Accordingly, Legion is pushing for an accelerated pursuit of a sale of the Europe business.
Legion sees two potential paths to value creation here. First, the company could sell off its European and Latin American businesses and become a U.S. pure play. While there is little value to Europe-South and Latin America, Legion believes that the Europe-North business could fetch $500 million to $600 million in a sale, which could be used to de-lever the company. Additionally, while selling Europe-South and Latin America would not yield significant proceeds, it would get rid of a distraction and allow management to focus on its crown jewel U.S. asset. As a sale of the European business would not be enough to optimally de-lever the balance sheet, Clear Channel could also consider selling select U.S. assets. Legion would like to see management pursue this plan while also exploring a potential sale of the entire company. Such a sale would be more complex and possibly less lucrative than the other plan, but it would have the benefit of certainty.
CCO first announced its strategic review of the European business in December 2021 and very little has come to fruition. It is unclear why this is and what the logjam is, but if it continues, Legion will want to be inside the boardroom to get a better look. Legion has shown in the past that it has no hesitancy in soliciting proxies if it feels that is necessary. We have no doubt that if the firm is met with reluctance by the board to commence one of the two outlined paths, Legion will seek board seats. But the firm has plenty of time to make that decision as the nomination window does not open until Jan. 4, 2024.
Ken Squire is the founder and president of 13D Monitor, an institutional research service on shareholder activism, and the founder and portfolio manager of the 13D Activist Fund, a mutual fund that invests in a portfolio of activist 13D investments. More

President Joe Biden says his administration will attempt to deliver a different loan forgiveness program under the Higher Education Act, a 1965 law.
“Today’s decision has closed one path,” Biden said during a briefing Friday. “Now we’re going to pursue another.”

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks about the Supreme Court’s decision overruling student debt forgiveness in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., June 30, 2023.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images

President Joe Biden suggested on Friday that he was looking for another avenue to deliver student debt relief after the Supreme Court rejected his forgiveness plan.
“Today’s decision has closed one path,” Biden said during a briefing Friday. “Now we’re going to pursue another.”

Biden says his administration will attempt to deliver a different loan forgiveness program under the Higher Education Act. The 1965 law allows the secretary of education to “compromise, waive or release any right, title, claim, lien or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.”
The president didn’t provide many details about how this new approach might work, but said it was “legally sound.”
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In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative majority struck down Biden’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for tens of millions of Americans. The high court said the president didn’t have the authority to instruct his Education secretary to cancel such a large amount of consumer debt without authorization from Congress.
Consumer advocates said the debt cancelation shouldn’t die with the Supreme Court ruling.

“Biden must use another legal authority to deliver on this crucial obligation, and he must do so without delay,” said Astra Taylor, co-founder of the Debt Collective, a union of debtors.

Other relief measures after forgiveness is nixed

The president also said that his administration’s new payment plan, which slashes monthly bills in half for many student loan borrowers, would be available before payments resume.
Federal student loan payments have been on pause since March 2020.
After student loan bills restart, there will also be a 12-month period during which borrowers won’t face the harshest consequences of missing payments, including negative credit reports and collection activity.
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The Supreme Court on Friday struck down President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan.
The ruling matched expert predictions, given the justices’ conservative majority. Education officials, however, warned of a historic rise in delinquencies and defaults.
“Today’s decision is an absolute betrayal to 40 million student loan borrowers counting on an impartial court to decide their financial future based upon the established rule of law,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director at the Student Borrower Protection Center.

Supporters of student debt forgiveness demonstrate outside the US Supreme Court on June 30, 2023, in Washington, DC. 
Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty Images

The Supreme Court on Friday struck down President Joe Biden’s federal student loan forgiveness plan, denying tens of millions of Americans the chance to get up to $20,000 of their debt erased.
The ruling, which matched expert predictions given the justices’ conservative majority, is a massive blow to borrowers who were promised loan forgiveness by the Biden administration last summer.

The 6-3 majority ruled that at least one of the GOP-led six states that challenged the loan relief program had the proper legal footing, known as standing, to do so.
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The high court said the president didn’t have the authority to instruct his Education secretary to cancel such a large amount of consumer debt without authorization from Congress.
“‘Can the Secretary use his powers to abolish $430 billion in student loans, completely canceling loan balances for 20 million borrowers, as a pandemic winds down to its end?'” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion for Biden v. Nebraska. “We can’t believe the answer would be yes.”
Roberts also said the president’s plan would cause harm to Missouri, as it would have reduced profits at the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, or MOHELA.

“Under the Secretary’s plan, roughly half of all federal borrowers would have their loans completely discharged,” Roberts wrote. “MOHELA could no longer service those closed accounts, costing it, by Missouri’s estimate, $44 million a year in fees…The plan’s harm to MOHELA is also a harm to Missouri.”
Legal experts and advocates recently poked holes in the states’ argument that Biden’s plan would reduce MOHELA’s bottom line. They pointed out that the lender’s revenue was actually expected to rise because of some student loan servicers recently leaving the space and it picking up extra accounts. 
“I was surprised the court found Missouri had standing,” said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. “The debts of MOHELA are not the debts of the state. And MOEHLA is able to sue on its own, so why didn’t it bring its own lawsuit?”
In a statement Friday, Biden called the Supreme Court’s decision wrong and accused Republicans of hypocrisy.
“They had no problem with billions in pandemic-related loans to businesses — including hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of dollars for their own businesses. And those loans were forgiven,” Biden said. “But when it came to providing relief to millions of hard-working Americans, they did everything in their power to stop it.”
In a briefing Friday afternoon, Biden said his administration was looking for another avenue to deliver student debt relief.

‘An absolute betrayal’ for borrowers, say advocates

Consumer advocates slammed the ruling, and accused the court of bias.
“Today’s decision is an absolute betrayal to 40 million student loan borrowers counting on an impartial court to decide their financial future based upon the established rule of law,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director at the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group.

Astra Taylor, co-founder of the Debt Collective, a union of debtors, called the decision “a travesty for debtors and for democracy.”
“Student loan cancelation is perfectly legal, and these baseless and bad-faith lawsuits should have been dismissed long ago,” Taylor said.
The U.S. Department of Education recently warned that the Covid pandemic left millions of borrowers in a worse off financial situation and that its relief was necessary to avoid a historic rise in delinquencies and defaults.

Critics say plan was ‘expensive’ and ‘immoral’

The high court’s decision is a major win for the plaintiffs who worked to block the forgiveness and were worried about the executive branch interfering in the lending sector. At an estimated cost of $400 billion, Biden’s policy would have been among the most expensive executive actions in U.S. history.
“The President’s unilateral student debt cancellation plan was expensive, inflationary, poorly targeted, and would have done nothing to improve the affordability of higher education,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement. “With today’s Supreme Court decision, it’s time to put these costly cancellation schemes behind us.”
Republicans also celebrated the ruling.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., a Republican presidential contender, called the loan forgiveness plan an “illegal and immoral” bid to “transfer student debt to taxpayers.”
“If you take out a loan, you pay it back,” Scott said in a statement.
Conservative lawmakers recently passed legislation in the House and Senate to overturn the president’s plan, criticizing the policy for forcing taxpayers to improve the personal finances of those who benefited from higher education. Around half of people in the U.S. don’t hold a college degree, which research shows leads to greater earnings.
Biden vetoed that legislation.

How student loan forgiveness got to the Supreme Court

Supreme Court justices listen to arguments.
Artist: Bill Hennessey

Last August, under pressure from other Democrats, consumer advocates and borrowers to fix a lending system they described as broken and predatory, Biden announced he’d cancel up to $10,000 in federal student debt for most borrowers, and as much as $20,000 for those who’d received a Pell Grant in college, a form of aid for low-income families.
Even before the Covid-19-related public health crisis, when the U.S. economy was enjoying one of its healthiest periods in history, there were still problems plaguing the federal student loan system.
Only about half of borrowers were in repayment in 2019, according to an estimate by Kantrowitz. Around 25% — or more than 10 million people — were in delinquency or default, and the rest had applied for temporary relief measures for struggling borrowers, including deferments or forbearances.
These grim figures led to comparisons to the 2008 mortgage crisis.
When the Biden administration rolled out its loan forgiveness plan, it also released a 25-page memo by the U.S. Department of Justice asserting that its relief was permitted by the Heroes Act of 2003 — passed in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which grants the president broad power to revise student loan programs during national emergencies. The country was operating under an emergency declaration due to Covid-19 at the time.
But the administration’s forgiveness application process had been open for less than a month when a slew of legal challenges forced them to shut it. Biden’s plan faced at least six lawsuits from Republican-backed states and conservative groups, most of which accused him of executive overreach.

Two of those legal challenges made it to the Supreme Court: one brought by six GOP-led states — Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina — and another backed by the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative advocacy organization.
While the justices’ decision largely matched the predictions of many legal experts, some saw it going another way, especially after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments at the end of February.
Fordham law professor Jed Shugerman said at the time that he was struck by the “brilliant performance” of Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the lawyer who argued on behalf of the Biden administration and its relief plan.

“She may have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat,” Shugerman tweeted.
When the justices expressed skepticism that the Heroes Act of 2003 allowed such a large cancellation of student debt, Prelogar remained adamant that the president was acting squarely within the law’s scope to avoid borrower distress during national emergencies.
“There hasn’t been a national emergency like this in the time that the Heroes Act has been on the books that’s affected this many borrowers,” Prelogar said. “And so, I think it’s not surprising to see in response to this once-in-a-century pandemic.”
— CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger contributed to this story.
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The U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan Friday.
Between the high cost of college and student loan burden, students are increasingly questioning the value of a four-year degree.
High schoolers are also putting more emphasis on career training and post-college employment, a recent report by ECMC Group found.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan Friday, yet college affordability will remain an issue for years to come, experts say, causing more students to opt out altogether.
Given the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action admission policies as well, “it’s very appropriate for us to be concerned,” said Kelly Slay, assistant professor of higher education and public policy at Vanderbilt University. “Instead of broadening opportunities, we’re adding barriers.”

Michele Shepard, senior director of college affordability at The Institute for College Access & Success, added that “this debt-financed system is unsustainable.”
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“We continue to be concerned that the high cost of college — including not only tuition costs but housing, food, transportation and other living costs — is giving students second thoughts about enrolling,” she said.

College is only getting more expensive

Tuition and fees have more than doubled in 20 years, reaching $10,940 at four-year, in-state public colleges, on average, in the 2022-23 academic year. At four-year private colleges, it now costs $39,400, according to the College Board, which tracks trends in college pricing and student aid.
“The [Supreme Court] decision still does little to erase the massive burden brought on by the exponential rise in college tuition,” said Sarah Foster, analyst at Bankrate.com.

Many students borrow to cover the tab, which has already propelled collective student loan debt in the U.S. past $1.7 trillion.

Typically, seven in 10 college seniors graduate in the red, owing an average of nearly $30,000 per borrower, according to the most recent data from The Institute for College Access & Success.
This year’s incoming freshman class will rely on loans even more in pursuit of a degree at a public college or university, a recent report shows.
A 2023 high-school graduate could take on as much as $37,300, on average, in student debt to earn a bachelor’s degree, according to a NerdWallet analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
The share of parents taking out federal parent PLUS loans to help cover the costs of their children’s college education has also grown, NerdWallet found.

A wave of students may opt out of college

Between the high cost of college and student loan burden, students are increasingly questioning the value of a four-year degree.
“I started looking for a path that would be the cheapest and cause the least amount of debt,” said Parker O’Neill, 18, who will start a two-year dental assisting program this fall at Century College, a community and technical college in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Watching his mom struggle with her own debt repayment was the determining factor, he said.

High schoolers are also putting more emphasis on career training and post-college employment, a recent report by ECMC Group found.
About two-thirds, or 65%, of high schoolers think education after high school is necessary, the report said, but among students from low-income, first-generation or minority backgrounds, only 47% are considering a four-year college. 

How to avoid taking on too much student debt

With debt relief off the table, “people now should realize they need to be prudent,” said Kalman Chany, a financial aid consultant and author of The Princeton Review’s “Paying for College.” 
High-school students must plan ahead, he said, by maximizing gift aid, such as scholarships and grants, which does not need to be paid back; choosing schools that are affordable; and not borrowing more than they expect to earn in their first year after college.
Above all else, would-be students should “be very careful with how much they borrow,” Chany said.
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The U.S. Supreme Court verdict against President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan is unlikely to be consequential for the U.S. economy at large, economists said.
Although 40 million-plus Americans hold student debt, some 287 million do not.
The timing of a spending pullback, however small, is precarious, economists said.

Seksan Mongkhonkhamsao | Moment | Getty Images

The Supreme Court struck down the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan Friday.
While the bombshell ruling will undoubtedly be a blow to borrowers who had hoped — perhaps even expected — they’d have up to $20,000 of their student debt erased, the verdict is unlikely to be consequential for the U.S. economy at large, economists said.

“The Supreme Court decision to strike down loan forgiveness should have no meaningful impact on the economy,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics.

The fight against inflation gets a boost

It’s challenging to judge the economic effect of a sweeping policy such as student loan forgiveness.
If it had passed, it might have had a few broad, though marginal, effects on the economy, experts said.
For one, debt relief might have raised the standard of living for millions of households. With debt payments erased, consumers would have had more wiggle room in their budgets and would have pumped more money into the economy, economists said.
Estimates suggest consumers would spend about 3% to 6% of their increased wealth on new or accelerated purchases, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

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That dynamic may have exacerbated inflation, said economists. Put another way, if consumers had more wealth — as much as $20,000 — to spend on goods and services, that may have served to prop up prices.
Overturning student loan forgiveness is therefore somewhat deflationary and means the Federal Reserve may not have to raise borrowing costs as much as it otherwise would if forgiveness succeeded, economists said.
Inflation has fallen significantly to a 4% annual rate from its 9.1% pandemic-era peak but remains elevated above the central bank’s 2% long-term target.
“This will work in the direction of further slowing consumer spending,” said Shai Akabas, executive director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “And that will directionally contribute toward the Fed’s goal of getting inflation back to its target level.”

Borrowers may cut back on purchases

Consumer spending is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy, accounting for about 70% of U.S. gross domestic product, a measure of the nation’s total economic output.
The Supreme Court’s ruling is unlikely to trigger a big pullback in household spending, in an aggregate sense, economists said. That’s because nothing much has changed relative to household balance sheets. They owed the debt before and still do today, Zandi said.
“I’m sure [those borrowers] who applied for forgiveness are disappointed, but I don’t think it’ll have any bearing on their financial situation, because nothing has changed,” he said.
However, the resumption of monthly student loan payments in October, after a three-year pause, will likely have a bigger effect. Moody’s estimates those payments to be about $275 a month for the average borrower.

But again, the effect of resumed payments will likely be muted at a macro level, economists said.
For example, more than 40 million Americans have student loan debt, while about 287 million do not, said Tim Quinlan, senior economist at Wells Fargo Economics.
Quinlan estimates resumed monthly debt payments for this group, in combination with the effect of the upended loan forgiveness plan, would reduce annual U.S. consumer spending 0.5%, at the high end of the estimate range.
“It barely moves the needle in terms of broad measures of consumer spending,” Quinlan said of the macro effect.
At a micro level, however, “it’s a big deal for the households that are impacted,” Quinlan said.

Recession fears remain

The timing of this expected spending pullback, however small, is precarious, economists said.
Many economists forecast the U.S. to enter a mild recession later this year or in 2024, due to factors such as higher interest rates and tighter lending standards after recent turmoil in the banking sector.
The concern is that the aggregate effect of student loan policies — a resumption of loan payments and overturned forgiveness — may incrementally “add fuel to the fire,” Quinlan said.
Federal data issued Friday suggests consumer spending has already slowed significantly.
That said, there are student loan policies that have already been enacted by the Biden administration that will likely help borrowers affected by Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, economists said.

For example, the Biden administration is giving millions of borrowers who defaulted on their student loans a “fresh start” by marking their accounts as current. The White House also rolled out new income-driven repayment plans to make payments more affordable.
“In theory, those policies should be helpful to those who’d be most impacted by this decision by the Supreme Court,” Akabas said.
More relief may be forthcoming. The White House said Biden, in a forthcoming speech Friday, would “announce new actions to protect student loan borrowers.”
“The script is still being written here on all of this,” Zandi said. “I’m not sure the Supreme Court’s decision is the final say on what happens.” More

The Supreme Court on Friday blocked President Joe Biden’s plan for federal student loan forgiveness, which would have provided millions of borrowers up to $20,000 of relief.
Meanwhile, the student loan payment pause will end soon, with interest accruing on Sept. 1 and payments due in October.
Here’s how borrowers should prepare over the next few months, according to advisors.

A sign calling for student loan debt relief is seen outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 28, 2023.
Nathan Howard | Reuters

If you’re one of the millions of Americans affected by the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down student loan forgiveness, financial advisors have tips before payments resume.
The high court on Friday blocked President Joe Biden’s plan for federal student loan forgiveness, which would have provided borrowers up to $20,000 of relief. 

As the Covid-era payment pause ends, the ruling will have a “detrimental impact” on borrowers still recovering from the pandemic or wrestling with inflation, according to Ethan Miller, a certified financial planner and founder of Planning for Progress.
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Congress agreed not to extend the student loan payment pause again in June as part of the debt ceiling deal, with interest resuming Sept. 1 and payments due in October, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
“For some folks, it will require some hard choices,” said Miller, a planner in the Washington, D.C., area who specializes in student loans. “And for other borrowers, it is going to require a fundamental reimagining of their finances.”
Over the past few years, the student loan pause has provided freedom from payments, which has allowed some borrowers to save for buying a home or starting a family, he said. “This is just a ton of bricks falling right back down on some of those dreams.”

For some folks, it will require some hard choices, and for other borrowers, it is going to require a fundamental reimagining of their finances.

Ethan Miller
Founder of Planning for Progress

Biden’s plan would have cleared the student loan balances of around 14 million people, according to estimates from some experts. The cancellation also applied to so-called Parent PLUS loans, which are federal loans parents can use to help dependent children with college expenses.  
“It’s very disappointing for a lot of Americans,” added Becca Craig, a Kansas City-based CFP at Buckingham Strategic Wealth, who also specializes in student loan planning.

Review your student loan repayment plan

Craig urges borrowers to review their student loan repayment plan options and possibly make a change, depending on your overall financial goals.
“For a lot of borrowers, it’s really the lowest payment possible because they’re shooting for public service loan forgiveness or income-driven repayment forgiveness,” she said.

While the final details still haven’t been released, borrowers should also watch for updates on Biden’s new repayment plan, which could significantly lower future monthly payments, Craig said.
In the meantime, you should double-check your loan servicer, which may have changed over the past three years, along with income certification, banking details and more.
For borrowers with income-driven repayment plans, it’s important to watch for the deadline to recertify your income, Miller said. However, there may be opportunities to lower your payments, depending on when you submit the paperwork. More

Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, benefits provide a safety net for low-income elderly and disabled individuals.
But the program also comes with strict rules on how much money recipients can have saved.
New research takes a look at the impact of raising those thresholds or eliminating them entirely.

JGI/Tom Grill | Tetra images | Getty Images

A federal program for low-income elderly and disabled individuals — known as Supplemental Security Income — includes savings limits for beneficiaries that have largely not been updated since the program was created in 1972.
Individuals who receive SSI benefits may have just $2,000 in assets, while married couples or two-parent families with beneficiary children may have $3,000, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The list of assets that counts towards the limit includes money in bank accounts, cash, retirement savings, stocks, mutual funds, savings bonds, life insurance, burial funds and household goods, according to the nonpartisan research and policy institute.
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It may also include assets owned by parents, spouses or immigration sponsors.
Two categories that do not count include primary residences or vehicles.
The current $2,000 to $3,000 asset thresholds for individuals and couples were established between 1985 and 1989, according to the research.

That’s up from the original resource limits of $1,500 per individual and $2,250 per couple when the program was established in 1972.
Today, those thresholds are just one-sixth of their 1972 value, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes, and their worth declines further each year with inflation.
If they had been indexed to inflation, the limits for 2023 would be $9,929 per individual and $14,893 per couple.

How SSI’s asset limits may be raised

In new research, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities considers the effects of raising or eliminating the asset limits SSI has for beneficiaries.
“A higher limit would encourage — rather than penalize — saving and allow people to retain savings to use when they really need those resources,” the research states.
About 100,000 SSI beneficiaries have their benefits suspended or terminated every year because they went over the asset limits, according to Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
That can be triggered by even small inheritances or a birthday gift. People who go over the limits may owe back benefits and have to adjust their life plans when they lose their benefit income, Romig noted.
“On the Hill, they often talk about waste in terms of government spending,” Romig said. “This is a such a waste to make people go through all of this.”
Raising the thresholds would not dramatically increase enrollment in the program, the research finds.
If the limits were raised to $10,000 per beneficiary and $20,000 per couple, participation in SSI would increase by up to 3%, the research finds, based on an analysis of Census Bureau data.

We shouldn’t punish seniors and Ohioans with disabilities who do the right thing and save money for emergencies by taking away the money they rely on to live.

Sen. Sherrod Brown
Democratic senator from Ohio

One bill – the Supplemental Security Income Restoration Act – calls for raising the asset limits to those thresholds, while also indexing them to inflation.
The bill was proposed last April by two senators from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and Rob Portman, a Republican. While Portman has since retired, there are plans to reintroduce the proposal.
“We shouldn’t punish seniors and Ohioans with disabilities who do the right thing and save money for emergencies by taking away the money they rely on to live,” Brown said in a statement, while calling the rules “arbitrary and outdated.”
“I plan to reintroduce my bill that would update these rules for the first time in decades to allow beneficiaries to save without putting their benefits at risk,” he said.
If the SSI resource limits were raised even further, to $100,000 per beneficiary, about 5% more people would qualify for benefits, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found.
That $100,000 threshold would be in line with the amount eligible SSI beneficiaries are currently allowed to hold penalty-free in ABLE accounts, tax advantaged savings programs for people with disabilities.

ABLE accounts are currently available to individuals who became disabled by age 26. Recent legislation called the Secure 2.0 will make it so that age is raised to those disabled by age 46, which will make it so a majority of SSI beneficiaries can have those accounts, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes.
Another change — excluding the consideration of retirement accounts — could also help bolster SSI program eligibility.
Eliminating the asset test entirely would raise participation in the program by 6%, the nonpartisan research and policy institute found.

Changes would save time and money, experts say

SSI’s asset limits can make it impossible for beneficiaries to deal with financial situations that are even a little bit complicated, according to Kristen Dama, an attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, which represents about 1,100 clients in SSI matters each year.
Even if beneficiaries do not have certain assets the Social Security Administration suspects they have, the onus may be on them to provide the necessary paperwork to prove that, according to Dama.

The_burtons | Moment | Getty Images

Raising the limits may not only help prevent interruptions in benefits, it would also help reduce the administrative burden placed on the Social Security Administration to manage.
Higher asset limits would make it so the Social Security Administration no longer has to look at every single bank statement, Dama noted, saving time for staff members who already face high workloads.
About 35% of the Social Security Administration’s administrative outlays are currently devoted to the administration of SSI, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“It’s going to be an easier program for Social Security to administer and it’s going to save taxpayer dollars,” Dama said of easing SSI’s asset restrictions. More

Asset management giant Fidelity Investments is again trying to launch a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund.
The move comes two weeks after BlackRock filed for a spot bitcoin ETF.
One of the SEC’s key concerns about a spot bitcoin product is transparency in the market and the potential for manipulation.

A Fidelity Investments location in New York.
Scott Mlyn | CNBC

Asset management giant Fidelity Investments is again trying to launch a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund, according to a Thursday filing.
The move comes two weeks after BlackRock filed for a spot bitcoin ETF, which has long been opposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other firms appear to have taken BlackRock’s filing as a sign that the SEC’s stance could soon change. Since then, WisdomTree, VanEck and Invesco have taken the initial steps toward their own funds. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest filed for changes to its proposed bitcoin fund Wednesday that brought it closer in line with BlackRock’s application.
Thursday’s filing is a proposed rule from the Cboe BZX Exchange to list the Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust, the name of Fidelity’s previously proposed bitcoin ETF that was denied by the SEC. The exchange has made similar filings for other firms over the past two weeks.
The SEC has so far rejected every spot bitcoin fund application on which it has made a decision. The commission is in a legal battle with Grayscale about its decision to block the conversion of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an ETF. A decision in that case is expected later this year.
One of the SEC’s key concerns about a spot bitcoin product is transparency in the market and the potential for manipulation. The BlackRock filing includes a proposed surveillance-sharing agreement that could alleviate those concerns. The subsequent filings have similar proposals.
The SEC has already allowed the creation of ETFs that track bitcoin futures contracts, including the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) that has more than $1 billion in assets. The first leveraged bitcoin futures fund hit the market Tuesday.
The new rush for ETFs appears to have buoyed prices for bitcoin. The digital currency was trading near $30,500 Thursday afternoon, up from below $26,000 prior to the BlackRock filing. More