[영문]The federal benefit rate (FBR) of the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program has been proposed by some analysts as a potentially attractive basis of establishing a new minimum benefit for Social Security on both of these grounds. In contrast to Social Security, the SSI program is means tested, including both an income and asset screen and also a categorical eligibility screen. Based on a series of simulations, the authors assess the FBR as a potential foundation for minimum Social Security benefits and they examine the tradeoffs between administrative simplicity and target effectiveness using microdata from the 1996 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Their empirical analysis is limited to Social Security retired-worker beneficiaries aged 65 or older. They start with the assessment of the FBR as a measure of benefit adequacy. The results also show that the FBR-based measure of Social Security benefit adequacy is very imprecise in terms of identifying economically vulnerable people