“We are no longer counting food that someone gives you as income when we figure your SSI payment.”
This came into effect on September 30, but they just informed SSI recipients (using the future tense) this morning.
You mean they can just change these awful rules without needing an act of Congress to do so? Incredible. We suffered for years for no reason! But don’t worry, our call is important to them:
Second, this final rule promotes equity. SSI recipients, by definition, have low income and resources. Because low-income people disproportionately encounter barriers across a range of social, health, and economic outcomes, our goal is to improve their circumstances, thus improving equity.
Incredible. You’re the ones who legally require that we have low income and resources! 
(Edited title)
Hi, I’m surprised so many people (including the recent John Oliver video) repeat this about SSI without mentioning ABLE accounts.
ABLE accounts can have up to 100k in them before affecting disability benefits. Anyone can deposit money into them, and the money in there is exempt from SSI and other programs as long as it’s being used for disability related expenses which is generally pretty much anything that’s remotely self care related (school, vacation, pets, etc.). The money can be then loaded on a debit card and can be used to pay for food, housing, etc.
Not to say that SSI doesn’t have some terrible issues but that ABLE accounts were put into law to get around some of these issues.
I do have an ABLE account, but there are many people who are not allowed to have them. They’re raising the age soon (?), but when they started they only SSI recipients who became disabled before the age of 26 were eligible.
I didn’t know John Oliver had an SSI episode. I need to see that one.
That’s a fair point about the age. Apparently this is changing to 46 relatively soon in 2026! “ABLE Age Adjustment Act passed as part of the Omnibus Spending Bill. This bill will increase the age of ABLE eligibility from “before age 26” to “before age 46” effective 01/01/2026. This will expand the number of ABLE eligible individuals by an estimated six million people, including one million veterans. National Disability Institute (NDI), parent company of the ABLE National Resource Center, and ABLE supporters and disability advocates from across the country strongly supported this change.”
Here is the Disability Benefits episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq2s7RMRsgs
I am happy that he did it as his episodes usually lead to more eyes on the issue and sometimes favorable legislation.
Oh, wow, all the way to 46. That’s great news.
Thanks for the link!
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I’m in the UK and going through a disability benefits appeal right now. I’m a partially sighted stroke and cancer patient who is learning to walk again but apparently giving me zero points and stopping my payments is reasonable. Anyway I’ve been starving as I have no family to help and the food bank is so difficult and takes ages to access. So a couple of times I asked comrades on here for help. But then the DWP (British benefit nazis) said that they are going to check all claimants bank accounts, and I’ll get in trouble if they see money going into my account. So I don’t dare to ask for money. So I asked for supermarket vouchers/justeat voucher/amazon voucher for amazon pantry instead which means I’m not getting any help now as most people here aren’t British and don’t want the hassle of trying to work out how to buy vouchers for a different country. It’s bad enough having cancer and having had a stroke, hospital appointments, awful treatments, etc. But on top of this society has decided that it doesn’t want to pay me enough to live. And as if that isn’t bad enough society has decided that I shouldn’t be able to get any financial assistance as charity from members of the public either. Why does having cancer mean that I have to be punished with starvation and destitution?
Fun fact, you can only get SSD (disability) if you’ve worked a certain amount of time. So because I’m 32 and have worked exactly two jobs in my entire life, I can fuck off and die.
Yes. That’s why I’m on SSI and not SSDI. It’s kinda like how they tie unemployment to your last paying full-time job and not something sensible like … being unemployed. This was a shock to me when I was first applying for benefits and honestly we should all retain that shock because it’s absolutely absurd.
SSI recipients get the ridiculous asset limits and other strictures, so they can punish us for having never entered the workforce.
Now that’s what I call…harm reduction.
Bet you all wished the you would
This is unironically a great development.
Sometimes nice things can happen, and for those on SSI, a little less means testing cruelty is a nice thing.
Major support to anyone whose malicious compliance contributed to the end of this rule. I’ve often thought about reporting things like “I ate a chip from someone else’s order” but feared the consequences of what it would mean for my benefits two months later.
“I ate a chip from someone else’s order”
Eating hot chip and lie
It is.
It is harm reduction. But under no circumstances do you have to hand it to them. Especially not to
