From Real Change:
His name isn’t Wyatt Avery, but when this reporter asked him, jokingly, what name he’d like to use for the piece you’re currently reading, the question left him a bit flummoxed.
“Oh, I don’t know — Katie,” Avery said, laughing the laugh of a person who really doesn’t care but feels like maybe they should humor you. A pity laugh.
As I continued to look into his story about why the government had decided to not just stop paying him the supplemental social insurance (SSI) money on which he depends, but also come after him, a homeless man, for nearly $4,000 for a mistake it acknowledged its office made, it became clear that his nom de plume would have to be Wyatt Avery. ...
SSI is challenging. It is hard to get into the program, hard to stay in the program and ultimately hard to transition away from it and support oneself should the opportunity arise. That’s because to qualify for SSI, you have to be incredibly poor; so poor that the amount of assets it would take to pay first and last month’s rent plus a security deposit in the city of Seattle would automatically get you kicked off of your primary source of income.
To qualify for SSI, an applicant can have no more than $2,000 in assets. That includes nearly everything you own, excluding your home (if you have one), your car (at least usually, according to SSA) and your burial plot. ...
Food benefits plus SSI meant that Avery had not quite $1,000 to sustain himself every month while he lived on the streets of Seattle. That meant he didn’t starve, but it also created one more barrier to getting indoors. On top of the usual difficulties in securing an apartment (background checks, credit checks, application fees, et al), Avery and other homeless people have a catch-22: Save up enough to get housing and lose your primary source of income in the process.
That was Avery’s problem. He had first and last month’s deposit squirreled away in the hopes of getting an apartment.
“They’re not going to check,” his payee, a person who helps with finances for people who can’t manage their own, told him. But they did.
“I had to spend $2,300 in two months,” Avery said. Because that happened, he has to wait until a housing voucher opens up rather than getting an apartment for himself.
Here’s the thing about that $2,000 asset limit: It isn’t very much. It wasn’t very much in 1984 when it was first established and was worth more than double what it is today — roughly $4,867.85 according to one inflation calculator. Income limits are even worse: According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the government hasn’t adjusted income limits for the program since 1979. ...
16 comments:
Still not sure why everything involved (ssi limits, benefit payments, medicare costs, rep fees, user fee, etc.) was not set up to automatically adjust for inflation. It would simplify a great deal of things.
11:36
Benefit payments do adjust, user fee does adjust, not sure what you mean by medicare costs, but Rep Fees (actual the automatic fee approval cap) does not adjust and the asset limit for SSI does not adjust and the income disregards for SSI $20.00 before one dollar for every dollar reduction and, if earned, disregard of $65 and one of two reduction.
In effect the most desperately poor on SSI pay a tax rate of 50% on their earnings, if they try to work, a higher rate than the highest rate that applies to mega millionaires.
His payee should have to pay the overpayment back and never be a payee again. Their behavior was appalling and probably illegal. And yes, the resource limits and income disregards and ISM rules all need an overhaul.
@11:57, they do not get taxed, they get a reduction on a needs based program payment for people who have not worked and qualified for other benefits. They get taxed the same as anyone else with wages, they just cut the welfare, which they did nothing for in the first place. Your analogy is laughable.
So, it is a resource problem that a homeless guy can't save enough for rent. Based on the scenario described, he wouldn't have enough cash benefits to pay the rent they are alleging in Seattle. This is a very expensive place to live... maybe move on to another more reasonable city?
I agree the SSI assets limit should be raised (along w/ the FICA limit for SSD). However, I never understood why SSI claimants were not subjected to the archaic waiting period for medical coverage.
The way I see it. An SSI recipient automatically qualifies for Medicaid (Medi-Cal out here in California). But an SSD recipient has to wait 2 years from the date of entitlement (which I tell my clients 2 years and 5 months from the AOD) to get Medicare.
I still for the life of me do not know why there is a Medicare waiting period! And who and why did they come up with 2 years?
One solution, used by an unknown number of SSI recipients, is to keep your cash over $2000 in a lock box in your closet and don't tell anyone about it.
I do agree though that the $2000 resource limit and the $65 earned income exclusion are way overdue for reform.
@Anonymous 11:01: From what I understand, the 2 year wait for Medicare benefits was one of those crazy concessions that Congress spits out in order to get bills passed. Opponents wanted some pound of flesh before they'd vote in favor. This may be incorrect, but this was reported somewhere. Someone may have more accurate information.
@1203--one can do that but it's fraud to not report assets. Fraud based on exceeding the resource limit is pretty common for SSI. The good news is more and more places report info that allows SSA to catch these fraudsters.
Agree that there shouldn't be a 2-year wait for Medicare. But for people in many states, if they don't have other coverage and their SSDI benefits and other income are low enough, they can get Medicaid while they wait.
The $2,000 countable resource limit was way before 1984. It was $2,000/$3,000 in 1976 when I started working for the agency.
@753 It was $1500/$2250 back then. The limits were raised to $1,800 and $2,700, in 1988, to $1,900 and $2,850, and, in 1989, to $2,000 and $3,000.
Ok, so you have whined about it. Now what? What is an "acceptable" amount of resources a person applying for a needs based welfare program that is unable to work supposed to have? Remember, they cannot work due to a condition that precludes all work or is expected to end in death. $3000, $5000, $10,000? What should a person with no income or way of getting income be allowed to keep as a resource?
For comparison, lets look at average household savings in the US, by age.
Almost 30 percent of households have less than $1,000 saved, MagnifyMoney finds, though the amount varies drastically by age. As of June 2018, millennials have less saved than baby boomers, because older Americans have had over three decades longer to save and larger salaries to work with.
Here's how Americans' median savings breaks down by age:
•Millennials (born 1981-1998): $2,430
•Gen X (born 1965-1980): $15,780
•Baby Boomers and older (born before 1964): $24,280
So you want to have more leeway for people that have no income stream and are trying to qualify for a needs based program than 30% of the households in the US have.
The last comment was almost certainly made by a paid shill. Who else would go to the trouble of looking up household savings? I've allowed this to post since it's a viewpoint worth noting but also note that money is being spent to influence public opinion even in this relatively obscure forum. I find that to be creepy.
I made the post, I am not a paid shill. I am simply point out that if the average household in the US that is working and paying its bills is less than the SSI limit for a person with no income and getting on a needs based program. I am pointing out the absurdity of some of the statements on this board. It took all of about 5 seconds to become informed. Nobody paid me to make the statement, and even if you do not post this you have to become less concerned with conspiracy, you are sounding like a Trumper!
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