New ABLE Account Instructions

     The Social Security Administration has updated the staff instructions in its POMS manual for Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) accounts. These accounts allow the sheltering of money which would otherwise render a person ineligible for Supplement Security Income (SSI). 

     I cannot evaluate the significance of these new instructions since I haven't been involved in ABLE issues. 

     I'm glad the ABLE accounts exist but they're a sop to people who have money and want to help their disabled relatives get around the ridiculously stringent SSI resource limits. Most disabled people don't have relatives who can help them in this way. What's urgently needed are updated resource and income limitations for everyone on SSI. The SSI resource and income limitations contain no cost of living adjustment and haven't been updated since they were created in the 1970s. They're brutal. I know those who supported ABLE accounts also supported income and resource updates. I can't fault their decision that it was better to take ABLE than to get nothing but ABLE isn't nearly enough. When the time finally comes again when Democrats control Congress, an SSI update has to be very near the top of the entire Democratic agenda. There is no other issue in the Social Security world, apart from the agency's operating budget, that's anywhere near as important as an SSI update.