Tracey Gronniger: Hello everyone. Welcome to our webinar today on Supplemental Security Income resources with Trinh Phan and Emily James Disability Rights California. My name is Tracey Gronniger. I am the director managing director of Economic Security And housing here at Justice in Aging and I will be moderating for today. Before we get started, I wanted to share a couple of webinar logistics. First of all everyone is on mute. So if you have questions you should use the questions function in your chat box. If you have substantive or technical concerns, if you have any problems getting onto the webinar, you can send an e-mail to trainings@justiceinaging.org. Also we will have the recording and other materials for this training and past trainings and we will be sending you information as well. You can enable closed captioning by selecting cc from the Zoom control panel. And last you can sign up for Justice in Aging’s network to see e-mails about upcoming trainings and other resources. And with that, I will turn it over to your wonderful presenters for today.
Trinh Phan: Okay. Hi. I am Trinh Phan director of state income security at Justice in Aging. So your presenters today are from two different organizations. Justice in Aging is a national organization that uses the power of law to fight senior poverty. We have a long-standing focus on SSI, helping people to understand how it works and the program rules and identifying ways to increase access to SSI and other resources that help low income seniors to age in dignity. And I will pass it over to Emily.
Emily James: Hello everybody. I am really happy to be here with you all here today and it is an honor to be copresenting with Trinh and the rest of the Justice in Aging team that is here supporting the presentation. I am the WIPA project manager at Disability Rights California. And WIPA stands for work incentives planning and assistance. So we provide benefits counseling to beneficiaries of Social Security benefits who are working or interested in working we help them understand how earnings from work will or will not affect their benefits. And Disability Rights California is the largest state advocacy agency in the country. It is the agency that advocates for the rights of Californians with disabilities. Since 1978 DRC has worked towards a world where disability is recognized as a natural part of the human experience where people with disabilities are supported, valued, and afforded the same opportunities as people without disabilities. DRC’s vision is grounded in disability justice where equity, self-determination, and collective liberation help to build a world in which all disabled people can thrive. And back to Trinh.
Trinh Phan: So on the agenda today is the SSI resource rules. We will start by describing how resources affect SSI eligibility. After that we go into the core of the presentation and resource exclusions and problem-solving. Here we will discuss what is not a resource or is excluded, how to problem-solve common issues and also briefly mention transfer of resources and deeming. The final section will explain what poverty traps are and solutions to end them. So this first section of the presentation will be an introduction to the topic and an explanation of how resources can affect SSI disability. So on the next slide we will start off with a quick introduction and reminder about SSI. Supplemental Security Income or SSI provides vital cash assistance for 7.4 million older adults and individuals with disabilities. To receive SSI individuals must have low income and limited resources. today’s presentation is about what the limited resources requirement means. And just to start off what is a resource? What does that mean in the SSI program? The SSI regulations define a resource as cash or other liquid assets or any real or personal property that an individual owns and could convert to cash to be used for his or her support and maintenance. Cash or liquid assets could be money in your bank account or stocks or bonds, real properties, things like houses or land. And personal property could be things like cars. And so now that we know what a resource is let’s talk about the resource limit. SSI has a resource limit of $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a married couple. You may also know this as the SSI asset cap or asset limit. Same thing just different ways to describe it. Resource is the technical term. The Social Security Administration or SSA counts resources once a month on the first day of the month to figure out if you are under or over the limit. This resource limit is exceptionally low and that is because it was last updated in 1989 when $2,000 could pay for a lot more than it can today. This really limits people’s choices and creates a lot of practical choices some of which we can solve and others we cannot solve. The resource limit makes it hard to deal with difficulties and basic financial planning even for expected expenses. Even routine expenses can be tricky because you have to be careful of how much is in your bank account on the first of the month. That could be trying to juggle your monthly bills, a senior who owns their home and needs to save money to pay property taxes, someone saving up to buy a car or someone who needs to move and needs to save up for first and last month’s rent. It can be hard to manage this without going over $2,000 and sometimes it is impossible. And back over to Emily.
Emily James: Thanks Trinh. So now we are going to talk a little bit about what happens if you go over the very low resource limit how is SSI affected? So as Trinh mentioned Social Security does make the determination of resource limit on actually the first day of each month. So any money coming in and out of accounts between the first day of one month and the first day of the next month it does not affect SSI. So the SSI resource eligibility exists for an entire month at a time. Next slide please. So in terms of the SSI check, if Social Security determines that the beneficiary is over the resource limit, then the individual is not eligible for their SSI check that month. If Social Security determines that they are under the resource limit, then they are eligible for their check. So it’s pretty simple, cut and dried and it’s important to remember even if it’s just one dollar over the resource limit it can still result in ineligibility for that month. When I am working with beneficiaries with doing benefits counseling and they are thinking about going back to work trying to improve their financial situation, it’s not the SSI check that they are most concerned about most of the time. It’s the healthcare that’s attached. And with SSI that’s Medicaid. So it’s important to understand that if Social Security determines the beneficiary is over the resource limit for the month, that also means that they are ineligible for the SSI-related Medicaid for the month and that can put somebody into a tough situation. I’m going to introduce beneficiary Anne and just to make it easier just to talk about. Let’s say Anne got some money from her family to help her out with her expenses in July and she put that in an account not thinking about the resource limit. And in October she receives the notice from Social Security saying hey you were over the limit in July so you owe us that check back as an overpayment. But in addition we see that you have some doctor visits in July as well and the Medicaid is not going to cover those visits and you have to cover those costs as well. So that can be overwhelming very quickly. We can go to the next slide please. Once Social Security determines an individual is over the resource limit it starts what’s called a 12-month suspension period. So when Social Security determines the beneficiary is over the amount, they are not terminated from the SSI program. They are suspended. Their benefit is suspended and there is a 12-month suspension period. So starting with the first month of ineligibility due to resources that starts the suspension period. And then the suspension period it allows the beneficiary to spend down these practice resources within 12 consecutive months. There is no limit to the number of times a beneficiary can move in and out of suspension status. So for example again talking about Anne, she realized in October she went over the resource limit in July. Got that taken care of so she came out of the suspension period in November. And then in December it’s holidays time and her family gifts her monetary gifts and she was just excited not thinking about it puts that back into her account. Social Security determines in January she is over the resource limit again. That would start another 12-month suspension period for her to try to spend that money down to maintain her benefit. And the Social Security computer system can actually terminate the SSI record after 12 consecutive months so it can just happen automatically by computer that the beneficiary is no longer eligible for the SSI and the Medicaid that’s attached.
Trinh Phan: All right. So this section and the next few sections that follow are about resource exclusions and problem-solving. They help to answer questions like what can you keep and have it not count toward that $2,000 limit? If you get some money or another resource can it go somewhere safe? And where would that be? What other issues can come up and how can you manage them? So next slide. Before we get into resource exclusions though I want to flag that there are some things that don’t count as a resource, not because they are excluded but because they do not meet the definition of a resource. That definition being that a resource is something that you own and could convert to cash to be used for your support and maintenance. If it does not meet this definition, it is not a resource. An example of something that you do not actually own and cannot use for our own support is a bank account that has your name on it but the money belongs to someone else. Sometimes people with listed on someone else’s bank account as a matter of convenience or to help the person manage their money. If SSI stops your benefits because of a result like this you can appeal that decision. The links on this slide gives you a process to rebut ownership of such a bank account and stop it from counting as a resource to you. Something that’s also not going to count as a resource if you cannot convert it to cash because of some barrier. Maybe there’s a co-owner and they refuse to give that consent. Another example is if you are working and have a retirement plan through your job and you cannot access the money in the retirement account while you are currently employed there. If or when the barrier is no longer there, it may start counting as a resource. But until then it is not a resource. So this slide includes links to the relevant program operations manual system or POMS for these rules. You will see links for the POMS. They are the main determination used by SSI employees to carry out program laws regulations and rules. All right. So now let’s talk about things that do meet the definition of a resource but for which there is an exclusion. SSI has a resource exclusions that allow people to have some things that support basic life needs and increase financial well-being and still keep their SSI. This slide has a link to the full list of exclusions. It can be helpful to scan through the list to get an idea of what things are excluded. What can you keep? What are ideas of things you can spend on and not have it count toward the resource benefit. Common exclusions are your home, one vehicle, personal or household goods, burial spaces for yourself and immediate family and prepaid burial or funeral contracts. Also money that is in certain accounts such as achieving a better life experience or ABLE account and trust accounts set up in accordance with the SSA rules. On the next slide are some more exclusions. Certain payments are excluded from counting as a resource for a specific time period. There are also certain exclusions on Indian trust fund payments paid to American Indians who are members of a federally recognized tribe. You may have heard recently about 530 A or Trump accounts. These accounts are excluded until the end of the calendar year that the individual turns age 17. In that calendar year you can roll it over into an ABLE account this was mentioned on the last slide to keep it excluded going forward. All right. So on the next slide we will talk about four specific exclusions in a bit more detail. First there is an exclusion for your home and all contiguous land regardless of value. The home can be mobile like a mobile home or it can be located on land or water like a house boat wherever your principal place of residence is. There are a number of policies that protect the home and keep it excluded which makes a lot of sense because the home is very important as an asset and as housing for people. Thus there are a lot of POMS on real property and land. If you leave the home but intend to return, the home remains excluded. This is important for people in nurses homes for example. Even if their doctor thinks they won’t be able to return home, if the person intends to return home, then it remains excluded. It is the person’s intent that matters. Real property can remain excluded in some additional circumstances that are listed on the bottom of the slide. On the next slide an important part of understanding resource exclusions is understanding what happens if somebody does not meet the criteria for an exclusion. And so if you have real property that does not fit into an exclusion, then it will count against the $2,000 limit. This could be a lot that was purchased long ago or a property you inherited when a loved one passed away for example. The value that will count is the amount of your equity in the resource and that equity value is equal to the current market value minus any encumbrance like a mortgage for example. Many questions can come up with real property that is countable to see if somehow you can — see if it could not count. Is the ownership information correct? Is the value that SSI has correct. Is there something that could potentially exclude the property like a co-owner who lives there. Sometimes the next step is that the person will sell the next property and spend down to get under the resource limit again. You can receive conditional SSI benefits while you are making reasonable efforts to sell the property. And so the conditional benefits are really helpful because sometimes the property is still there for a reason. And because it’s going to be hard to sell. So the conditional benefits allow the person to have something to live on while this is all happening with the sale. The next slide the next exclusion we will talk about is the car exclusion. One vehicle that is used for transportation is going to be excluded regardless of its value. Like with the home if outside of that one vehicle if there’s another vehicle, there’s going to be — it’s value will count against the $2,000 limit. SSI will use an external guide JD Powers guide online to determine the current market value and as with real property you can rebut that value if you disagree one option to keep in mind for excluding an additional car is a concept called property essential to self support which can exclude personal property that is used for employment or in a trade or business. For example this could be someone who works as an in-home care provider and has a vehicle they use to transport their client to medical appointments. This can help them to hold on to that second vehicle. And on the next slide there are also important exclusions for burial and funeral expenses. If someone is over the limit by a few thousand dollars this can be a helpful option to spend it down on something that they might have wanted to do one day any ways. Burial spaces for yourself and immediate family are excluded. Immediate family being your parents and children, siblings and the spouses of these individuals. Another big item that you see in this area is prepaid burial contracts which is where you prepay for burial services. These are excluded if they are irrevocable or in other words the contract cannot be revoked or it cannot be sold without significant hardship. An easy way to figure this out might be to talk to the cemetery or whoever you purchased this from and explain that you have SSI and you want to buy something that is okay for SSI and not count as a resource. I saw this because this issue is going to affect part of their customer base and therefore it makes good business sense for these places to figure this out and to know what paper work to use for this. There is also a $1500 burial funds exclusion which is where you designate funds for burial related expenses. But in practice you might not see that too often because that 1500 is reduced by the value of prepaid burial or funeral contracts and the face value of excluded life insurance policies. This means that if you already have a prepaid burial contract that likely prevents you from using this burial funds exclusion. And on the next slide the last one I will talk about is ABLE accounts, which are another helpful option that allows people to start saving money or to hold on to money they receive. Very briefly because Emily has slides later an ABLE account is a savings and/or investment option designed exclusively for people with disabilities, where they can keep up to $100,000 without it affecting their SSI. The criteria for opening an ABLE account is that you have a disability that began before the age of 26 and starting this January it expanded to be before age 46. This means a lot more people with disabilities can save money to these accounts without it affecting their SSI. Keep this in mind with older adults because this includes people who became disabled as a younger age and are now older adults. And I will pass it over to Emily.
Emily James: Thanks Trinh. Okay. So now we are going to be talking about you go over the resource limit. What are spend down options? Okay. So we know that Social Security makes those resource determinations on the first day of every month, the first day of the calendar month. So as I mentioned before any money that comes in in the middle of the month as long as it’s spent down before the first day of the next month, it won’t affect your SSI eligibility. And I thought it was important to point out that sometimes there are funds that can be considered as income first actually unearned income and then later be considered resources. So for example if a beneficiary wins the lottery the first month that those winnings are entered into the account, then the first day of the next month is going to be considered unearned income and Social Security will subtract unearned income from the Social Security the amount of the person gets in the Social Security check. Any earnings, winnings left in the account past that first month are then considered the resource and will go towards that 2,000 and $3,000 amount we know about now. I had a real life beneficiary situation where they graduated from college and family gifted them with monetary gifts. And you know they put those into their accounts without realizing Social Security was going to count that as unearned income. So it caused them a little bit of problem in terms of their benefits but we were able to get it solved pretty quickly. Okay. So we can move on. All right. Here we are talking again about ABLE accounts. I know Trinh started talking about those and this basically has the same information in it. There are ABLE accounts in all states but three where they are inactive. So even if you live in another state you may take advantage of an ABLE account somewhere else. there are fees attached to ABLE accounts and they vary from state to state. Each program runs a little bit differently. So if you are interested in using this as a spend down option it’s good to do your research and you can go to the link here to learn more about ABLE accounts and be able to compare different states and see what one might work best for you. When you have money in an ABLE account it can also be an investment option so that money can make money which is a good thing. And the way that you get money out and be able to use the money from that account is called qualified disability expenses. And I will tell you that the definition of qualified disability expenses is pretty liberal. So money can be taken out of the ABLE account for things like buying a house, buying a car. Paying rent, buying groceries even a vacation. Because vacations do improve people’s mental health and can you know help with a disability. So it’s good to know that they are pretty liberal. All right. And on the next slide it talks about that $100,000 resource limit in terms of ABLE accounts. So Social Security does not count the first $100,000 as a resource. If the balance does get over 100,000, then it would start counting towards that resource limit. And it’s important to remember, especially if you have multiple accounts Social Security will be checking all those accounts and adding everything together. and if it’s over the resource limit everything together then the benefit would be suspended. All right. And then there are some other accounts that are not considered resources, and these are called trust funds. Definitely not a trust fund professional, but I know that there are accounts and there are real life situations where people can use a trust to put money away that’s not going to be counted as a resource. Keep in mind only Social Security is designated to figure out if a trust fund is a resource. If I were checking this out, I would want to get something in writing from Social Security indicating that Social Security is determining this specific trust fund not being a resource. And a trust fund basically what it is it manages and distributes assets to beneficiaries according to the terms set by the granter who is the individual or entity that created and funded the trust fund. and then I have just listed three specific different types of trust funds. There’s a special needs trust, pooled trust and Medicaid trust. So just another option to consider. And then there’s another way to spend down resources is the transfer of resources. Then there’s Social Security will consider transfers of resources to be valid or invalid. A valid transfer is one that results in the beneficiary no longer having that resource no connection to the resource anymore so they sell the second car. They spend down the cash on things that aren’t counted as a resource maybe get some new furniture maybe make modifications to your car. Just spending the money. And then also giving money away can sometimes be valid; however, it is considered invalid if the beneficiary still has access to those funds. So our friend Anne let’s say needs to spend down some of those extra resources and so she talks to her friend and says hey I am $500 over. Can you just hold this money for me in your bank account and then when I need it I will get it from you. That would be considered an invalid transfer of funds by Social Security.
Trinh Phan: All right. So with transfer of resources I have a couple of practice tips. First is address the resources — address the resource. Because people are very reasonably worried about losing their SSI they sometimes try to refuse the resource like refusing an inheritance or they try to give it away. Oftentimes this does not work and SSA will apply the transfer of resources anyway. So figure out a way that deal with the resource and bring it back under the resource limit. The penalty is being ineligible for SSI for up to three years and you want to avoid that wherever possible. Second keep documentation of the spend down. If an individual spends the money but does not have receipts or other documentation, SSA can use that lack of documentation to impose a transfer penalty. Therefore keep receipts or request receipts from where the money was spent. That way you can show to SSA where the money went. And finally there are some situations where transfer is going to be okay. Check if one of these exceptions applies and what are these exceptions? On the next slide here is a list. I will flag a few things. One exception is if the person you transferred the resource is willing to return it to you. This allows you to undo an invalid transfer and do a valid transfer instead meaning spend it down within the SSI rules. Certain transfers to certain family members is a brief way to describe a complex set of situations including transfer of a home to your spouse child or sibling or transferring money to your house or disabled or blind child. Giving away resources is okay in certain situations like Emily mentioned. And this is where having or not having the resource makes no difference in your eligibility like giving away a resource that would be excluded anyway. For instance you have one car and give it to a grandchild or if you have $2,000 and give it away even if you kept the money you would would still be within the limit. Even if you transfer you can get an exception if. Back over to Emily.
Emily James: Thank you. Now we are going to talk about this thing called deeming and explain what deeming means in the world of (indiscernible). So deeming is a term that Social Security uses to describe the process of considering someone else’s income or resources available to meet the needs of a SSI beneficiary. So Social Security determines that there is an individual that has responsibility for a SSI beneficiary and therefore they are going to be sharing their income and resources to support that individual. Deeming can result in someone who would otherwise have been eligible for SSI and make them ineligible or reduce the amount of their SSI check as a result of deeming. There are three specific types of deeming relationships. One is parent of a minor child. The other is spouse to spouse deeming. And then there’s sponsor of a noncitizen. In the next slide we will talk about those a little bit more. So with the parent to child deeming that applies in a situation where you have an ineligible parent meaning the parent is not eligible for SSI but they have a child who is under 18 and is SSI eligible. So Social Security is going to assume that the parent’s income and resources are going to go to support that child and it’s a deemed relationship. And I just have a little note here in a situation where that child turns 18 and is now considered an adult, the deeming does not apply. But if that individual still stays in their parents’ home if Social Security determines that they are not paying their fair share of rent, then in kind support can apply which would reduce the amount that the now 18-year old receives in their SSI check. Spouse to spouse deeming, that applies when a SSI beneficiary marries someone who is not an SSI beneficiary. Social Security assumes that the spouse is going to be providing income and resources to support the SSI beneficiary. And then the last one is the sponsor of a noncitizen deeming, which applies to deeming the income or resources of an ineligible individual. So someone who is not receiving SSI who is sponsoring a noncitizen’s legal entry into the United States. So Social Security may determine that a certain amount of the responsible party’s income or resources is going to be available to the SSI beneficiary. Social Security makes these determinations when an individual first applies for SSI and it can determine whether or not they are eligible at all for the benefit and/or how much they are going to be receiving in their check each month because of the deeming situation. Also deeming can happen at any time in the SSI beneficiary’s life if there’s some kind of situation that triggers that rule. So if our friend Anne decides she wants to get married and her partner is not an SSI beneficiary, it would be important for her to understand that once that marriage takes place it could result for her being ineligible for SSI and at least would reduce the amount she is receiving in SSI. She would now be in a deemed relationship. And some additional deeming information here is that Social Security considers deemed income a source of unearned income. So Social Security views income as earned or unearned. Deemed income can result in being ineligible for the SSI cash benefit. And if that happens we need to remember that they may also be ineligible for that SSI related Medicaid. And that’s in states where SSI eligibility is automatic once they become a — Medicaid is given to the individual in some states when they receive SSI automatically. So in those states that’s when you have to be aware that if you ineligible for SSI due to deeming it can affect your Medicaid eligibility as well. Now because Social Security does consider deemed income as unearned income, the SSI beneficiary can choose to apply for what’s called a PASS plan for a plan to achieve self support which is a work incentive. And a PASS plan is for people to reach a certain occupational goal. So if Anne decides they wants to go to college and become a therapist let’s say she could apply for a PASS plan and put money away that wouldn’t be counted as a resource. Now she is married that income that’s being deemed from her partner can be put into this PASS plan and it could fund things like tuition or if she needs a laptop to be able to do her school work or if she would need to make modifications to her car to be able to get back and forth to school. So that’s another way that you can kind of get around and still take advantage of that deemed income for your own financial stability. Okay. And so it’s important to understand that deeming can cause issues related to SSI resources and income. We know now how extra resources and income can affect an SSI beneficiary’s eligibility, but we have to keep in mind that if the SSI beneficiary becomes subject to deeming, it can also cause those same or similar issues. If Anne’s spouse let’s say gets a raise or a promotion and is earning more money you have to assume then okay this is probably going to result in me becoming ineligible for the benefit or for my check to be reduced. All right. I think we can move on to the next slide, which we are going to change topics just a little bit and talk about poverty traps, particularly disability poverty traps and also some policy solutions. So on the next slide we are just going to see that the first poverty trap that comes to mind is SSI itself. And I wanted to share these numbers to illustrate that. So our government sets each year what’s called federal poverty level, meaning that people that have this much money or less are considered living in poverty. So in 2026 this year the poverty level monthly amount is 1330. The maximum amount an individual can receive in SSI this year is $994. So you can see that’s a dig difference that’s well below the poverty level. Some states like the state I am in in California will supplement the federal SSI check because the cost of living is higher in some states than others. So the maximum amount that California supplements the SSI check is by $239.94. So even with that added state supplement the maximum monthly total someone in California can receive through SSI is 1233.94. And then I just on the other side of the slide just broke those numbers down annually. So the annual poverty level this year 15,960. And the maximum someone can receive in SSI annually is 11,982. Even with a California state supplement added in still under that poverty level it ends up being 14,807.28. And then the thing we are talking about today these resource limits. I mean it’s not enough. $2,000 for an individual? $3,000 for a couple? If someone is living in poverty and wants to try to improve their financial situation, all these things that we have talking about and listed on this slide are considered resources. And what most of us would probably think about doing trying to get out of poverty; right? Have more cash, you know, invest what may be a little bit of money that you have. More property. Anything like that. Anything else that you own which could be changed to cash and used for food or shelter is considered a resource. So it really does trap people into a state of poverty. And then you know SSI beneficiary decides you know what? I’m feeling okay. My disability is under control right now. I think I would like to go out and earn a little money. I’m tired of being broke all the time. So they go out and they get a part time job. Anytime someone receives a disability benefit from Social Security they are required to report their earnings to Social Security and Social Security wants to know what their gross monthly income is. So that’s the amount we get paid before any taxes or anything is taken out of the check. So I have this example just to illustrate of someone working part time earning 2100, so gross income which is probably going to be more like 1800 net like take-home pay. But anyway Social Security uses the gross amount. And there is a calculation that Social Security does. So the individual reports I am working. I earned 2100 this month. Social Security is going to take that number and apply $85 in work incentives. So subtract that and cut it in half, divide it by two which brings us to 1007.50. And they take that amount and subtract it from the amount that the person receives in the SSI check. So we are assuming the person receives the full federal amount 994. If you subtract 1007.50 from 994, then you are in the negative. So that means your Social Security check goes to zero. You might have a little more money but it doesn’t feel good to beneficiary when they try to go out and work and see that their Social Security check is going down to zero again feeling trapped in poverty. And then there’s this thing we mentioned a little earlier unearned income. So unearned income will definitely reduce the amount an individual receives in their SSI check. And unearned income by Social Security is anything that’s not earned from work. Any money that’s not earned from work. So SSDI which is the other disability benefit people receive from Social Security. And what can happen sometimes with SSDI is if there is an individual that was receiving SSA and they have been working and so they have been earning points in the system. And they get to a point where they are now eligible for SSDI as well. Social Security does require that they do take the SSDI and that will also reduce the amount of their SSI check. Other unearned income includes pensions, state disability payments, unemployment benefits, interest income, dividends, even that monetary cash from friends and family that we mentioned before. And with any unearned income what Social Security does is they will subtract $20 from the amount of the unearned income and what’s left is what they subtract from the SSI check. So very quickly that check could be reduced or down to zero. And then we have to think too about all the other benefits that people depend on. Sometimes you know when receiving SSI as well things like SNAP benefits, food assistance, Medicaid, home health services, waivers, housing, VA benefits, energy assistance. So earning any kind of money is going to reduce the amount you receive in benefits and that can result in what happens and is illustrated on our next slide. I wanted to introduce you to this term that’s called a benefits cliff. So a benefits cliff means that you are earning income at a level where you become ineligible for benefits but you are not earning enough to make up the difference. So you are just kind of on this cliff. If you go to work and you are earning so much money that you are no longer eligible for your subsidized housing, but you are not earning enough to afford rent on your own that puts you in a tough spot. So unfortunately sometimes people have to choose not to work or really limit their earnings so that they can maintain the other benefits that they are depending on. And housing is a really big one here in California because housing is expensive. So people can get trapped in this benefits cliff. And the next slide we are going to talk about poverty trap solutions. And policy change is a big one; right? If we could get the resource limits changed and some other policyies that are keeping people trapped in poverty that would be major. And Trinh is going to discuss that in more detail. One initiative that I wanted to lift up that Disability Rights California is working on is a guaranteed income initiative and this is being led by the power building team here at DRC. And what it means is that every individual not just people that receive benefits would receive a monthly check. And when I first heard you know I’m like where is that money going to come from? But now I understand. It is our money. So it’s our tax money that would be coming back to us. And then every day entities are harvesting our information for free; right? They are following our algorithms. They are following our purchases. Our voices are being used. A lot of AI stuff going on there where our information is being harvested and our information being collected. So it’s us getting money back from it being taken from us for free. These monthly checks would not be counted as income, unearned income or resources. It would just be extra money in people’s hands. And there’s been various many previous pilot programs that have proven when you provide people with more money it improves the quality of their lives. They are not using the money frivolously or on unhealthy things. When people are given extra money they work to improve their lives. So that’s the best way to help people rise up from poverty. And on the next slide I just wanted to share a quote from Carolina Valle who is the director of DRC’s power building unit. And this is from a DRC Substack. Disability poverty traps part one. This is our money. Ending these poverty traps and giving more of the people’s own money back to them would give individuals and communities back control of their own economic security and dignity, their own independence, and the full humanity that has always been rightfully theirs. So if this topic interests you at all, I encourage you to check out the DRC substack. You can actually request that you receive them through your e-mail. And it’s loaded with really good information to learn more about that. And I will pass it back to Trinh.
Trinh Phan: Great, thank you. All right. So there’s a lot we can do to end the poverty traps generally like Emily mentioned. And specifically in the SSI program. So let’s first talk about why we should end them in SSI. As Emily mentioned, there are SSI income and resource and other rules that are very outdated and overly restrictive. And this has happened in part because we have not updated key income and resource amounts for 30 years or 50 years. That means that inflation has been chipping away at the real value of the SSI benefit over the years and this has effectively reduced the check, taking money out of people’s pockets and pushing them further into poverty. The lack of updates has also disconnected the SSI disability rules from current financial realities leaving us with things like a $2,000 resource limit that makes no sense. By paying attention now and making these changes we can give people more flexibility and control over their own finances and over their own lives. We can increase income and help people build wealth. Income and wealth are connected and income is the foundation. When you raise income so that people have enough to live on and have something left over to save, they are more stable first of all and they can begin building wealth. Wealth in turn opens up opportunity. Helping people with long-term goals like being a homeowner one day or moving to a better neighborhood. Or with short-term goals like saving up for a bill that will come due in a few months or for a larger expense that they are expecting in the next year or two. We can also bring SSI to more people. SSI is a targeted program that is meant to guarantee a basic income for low income seniors and people with disabilities who live in our communities, but it doesn’t reach some people who are struggling right now and who are shut out of SSI because of these outdated financial rules. These are people who could get a small check each month to help out if we had been updating things all along. Or if we update them now. Next slide. Let’s talk about specific proposals. One bill in congress now the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act would increase the resource limits to $10,000 for an individual and $20,000 for a couple and also index these amounts to inflation so you are not back here in 2050 wondering why the asset limit is so out of date. The current resource limit is so low that it becomes a trap. Right now you see SSA stopping people’s resource checks and charging them with overpayments because they have $2,005. Even if someone has 5,000 or 10,000 they should be able to keep it. The poverty trap here is the exceptionally low resource limit and solving it means at least moving that limit up to an amount that makes sense. Next slide. There is also a bill in congress the SSI Restoration Act that would make more widespread changes. These changes would make SSI much more livable and much more responsive to people’s real lives today. They include increasing the SSI resource limit to $10,000 for an individual and 20,000 for a couple as well as a number of other changes to increase flexibility around resources. It would extend the time you have to spend down certain payments, exclude retirement accounts from resources, and end the transfer of resources penalty. The bill also has changes that would increase the amount of income people have to live on. It would let people keep more of their current income by raising income disregards for wages from work. And for income from other sources like a Social Security retirement benefit or like SSDI like Emily was talking about earlier it would stop reducing the SSI check if someone gets married or gets help from family or friends for housing costs and can could exclude state tax credits and tribal benefits from income. It could also raise SSI payments to ensure that people are at least at the poverty line. These updates and investments would bring SSI to older adults and people with disabilities including people who do have some income and resources but not enough really to live on. The bill would also extend SSI to people living in U.S. territories right now, residents of the Northern Mariana Islands can receive SSI. The people in Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and Samoa would become eligible. These things can change for the future, increase income, and begin building wealth. They would give people breathing room and more confidence to make choices. Someone who has more income is going to be more stable and more financially secure when they have more money and real agency over their money. And the SSI rules should support that for low income seniors and people with disabilities. Next slide? This slide has additional resources including the relevant POMS regulations. The table for the POMS can be good to scan through to see what the rules are and there are materials to help you understand and work with the existing resource rules and to learn about ways to improve SSI going forward. And with that I will pass it over to Tracey.
Tracey Gronniger: Thanks so much both of you for such a really comprehensive webinar on resources. You got a lot of questions. So many that there’s no way that we can answer them all. And some of them are very specific and you know targeted, because I think that a common theme is how complex the program is. And I think that one thing that came up over and over and maybe you can just reiterate this is kind of the interaction of income versus resources. So there were a lot of questions of how does SSA even know what my income is. If I get that money in income does that mean it doesn’t counts as resource if I spend it every month? Could you talk a little bit more about the interaction income versus resources and how both of them can affect how much people receive in benefits?
Emily James: Yeah. I can take that one. I think if that’s okay. So income is considered by Social Security as money that you make through working. That’s what income is. Resources is anything else. And then unearned income is any money that comes to the beneficiary that’s not earned through work. So that kind of separates those three things. I feel like there was a second part to that question. I think people were hoping that if they got income and spent it quickly then it wouldn’t affect their benefits. And that’s not necessarily the case. No. It’s not. I mean if you have income and you have — you are making enough income to save some money which would be wonderful I would suggest using some of those accounts we discussed, ABLE — an ABLE account if you are eligible or setting up some kind of trust. And I am going to tell you Social Security is going to find out if you are making money. Even beneficiaries are required to report the earnings to Social Security. But Social Security has access to lots of system that will inform you of any income. Right now they are using a pie system for income exchange where they can get information from the agencies related to the income that you receive. It’s a plus because beneficiaries don’t have a report the income. Social Security is automatically getting it, but it can also cause problems sometimes. So thinking that Social Security is not going find out you are earning income I wouldn’t go that route. They are going to find out sooner or later.
Tracey Gronniger: I didn’t know if you have anything else to add. We have maybe one more question.
Trinh Phan: No. I think Emily gave a great answer.
Tracey Gronniger: Another question that came up was around rep payees. And if you can talk about what kind of resource or area of resource an rep payee bank account would count for purposes of SSI.
Trinh Phan: It kind of depends if it’s your rep payee, then that’s your resource. A resource to you. And so there’s some complicated rules around rep payee and resources and if something goes wrong and it was the rep payee’s fault. So if it’s your account your money then it’s going to count toward you. Sometimes people are rep payee for other people. So if it’s a rep payee account that you receive SSI and you are a rep payee for someone else, this is where ownership matters. And so even though your name is on the account of course you have access to use the account and to withdraw money from it. Because you need to be able to do that as a rep payee for this person. But ownership really matters. So there are a number of questions around that area as well and it’s really important — one concept is that it doesn’t matter that you have access to the account. There’s going to be times when you have access to an account for one reason or another. You may be able to pull money from the account. But the first question is does that money belong to you? If it doesn’t belong to you it’s not your money.
Tracey Gronniger: And I think a lot of the resources that are in the webinar presentation will help people kind of understand how they can look at that and how they think about that. So that’s a really helpful resource in addition to all the information you provided today. I think we are at time so we don’t have time for additional questions, but I want to reiterate thanks to Trinh and Emily for all the information that you provided. and hopefully this will be helpful to folks who are trying to better understand SSI resources and to help their clients. Thanks again everyone for coming.
