Supplemental Security Income (SSI) explained
Supplemental security income is a United States government program designed to provide certain individuals who with income benefits. These benefits ensure that an individual is able to continue to live while they may be unable to work. An individual must either be aged, disabled or blind. There are certain qualifications that an individual must meet under each category in order to qualify for benefits. Should they not meet the exact qualifications they will be denied benefits under the SSI program.
Unlike Social Security Disability Income or Social Security itself SSI comes from the general fund of the United States Treasury. Other Social Security payments come from the Social Security trust fund which is paid into by payroll taxes. An individual becomes aged when they reach 65 years of age or greater. An individual is disabled when they cannot perform any function of work for twelve months or their disease will most likely result in death. Blindness is determined by visual acuity of 20/200 or worse without the use of a corrective lens.
Income for individuals utilizing the SSI program must be below certain limits, according to John from PersonalFinanceTips.org. These limits vary based upon where the individual lives, how many people they live with and other factors that change based upon an individuals situation. SSI payments are made on the first day of the month unless the first day of the month is a weekend or banking holiday. Under these circumstances the payment is made the first working day before the weekend or banking holiday. The lowest a payment can be is $1 and many states decide to add onto the benefits that are distributed by the United States government. For example, the State of California adds over $200 to an individual's SSI payment each and every month.
SSI benefits also look at what financial resources an individual has. Having a large amount of cash or other resources may require an individual to exhaust them before utilizing SSI. Anything that can be turned into cash or is cash is automatically considered to be an asset in the views of SSI. For example, art, valuable furniture, real estate and other property is required to be sold off. Some exceptions apply to this but for the most part it is required to be reduced to $3,000 in assets or less. Individuals can continue to work and receive SSI benefits. How much they can continue to work and receive benefits should be discussed on an individual basis with a case manager.