https://www.thenation.com/article/society/ssi-rules-families-poverty/
The Supplemental Security Income program (SSI) was created in 1972 under the Nixon administration to provide financial support to low-income seniors and disabled people. An effort to federalize state-level adult support programs across the country, SSI is a means-tested program—there are financial requirements to be eligible. In the case of SSI, as of its last adjustment in 1989, enrollees cannot have savings of more than $2,000 as an individual or $3,000 as a family. Furthermore, SSI beneficiaries are prohibited from having retirement accounts, life insurance policies, certain types of personal property, funeral/burial policies, and access to other types of income.
[emphasis mine]
OMG I'm gonna test some means! 
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeup.
At this point it's an extremely humiliating form of social murder.
Plus - If you apply it'll take a year for your application to get processed. You will be denied. You will then have to appeal, which will take another year, and then you might get some amount of money. I believe it currently has a maximum pay out of something like 10k a year.
How are you supposed to stay alive during those two years? Fuck you, die in a gutter.
If you get married? You immediately lose everything; Your payments, your medicaid, everything. One of my friends didn't know, got married, and then had to get an annulment when their spouse lost all their social welfare.
Murica.
Oh, and the average wait time on social housing, like section 8, for a single man with no children is like 10 years, and that's in places where the system actually functions.
I believe it currently has a maximum pay out of something like 10k a year.
Federally, yes, but some states give more. In California you can make around $14,000, which is very much not enough to afford rent.
Apparently Indiana has the highest payout at 15k annually for some fucking reason.
How are you supposed to stay alive during those two years? Fuck you, die in a gutter.
Exactly. And if somehow you do find a way to work despite your disability just to survive in the years you're waiting and hoping for help, they will use that as proof that you don't need the help and deny your application since clearly you're capable of working! It's just one of the more enraging Catch-22's of the whole ridiculous process, but it's hardly the only one.
It's me!
I actually got approved on my first try, without a lawyer or anything. I had many years of medical records, and also had to go to one of their affiliated doctors for a final check-up.
There is one way you can have savings, but you have to have had your disability before the age of 26, and you're only allowed to spend it on certain things. Also your Social Security caseworker will not have heard of this program and you'll just have to hope they don't make it count against you somehow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABLE_account
Another fun fact - if someone buys you dinner, you have to report it, so they can reduce your benefits accordingly.
When benefits are raised or reduced, that happens two months later, so if you managed a desperate attempt to make some money or received assistance, it's dangerous to spend it on what you needed it for, because at ~$8 a day after rent you can't really afford to let that go down two months from now when prices might be even higher than they are now.
Also, you can't pay less than an even share of rent, even if you send them a blueprint of your apartment showing that you have the smallest bedroom, because anything less than an equal split counts as "housing assistance." Your benefits will be slashed accordingly.
Every single fact you've revealed here should be enough for another round of the Nuremberg trials to start and every single elected and appointed member of the US federal government should be tried in them.
There are eight million people on SSI. Who knows how many they've made homeless or killed.
A data analysis by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that from 2014 to 2019, about 48,000 people filed for bankruptcy while trying to get a final decision on a disability appeal. The same report said that from 2008 to 2019 more than 100,000 people died waiting.
Very interesting information, now could you please give me the names, addresses, and approximate neck shear force of the people responsible for this?
There's probably a dozen other restrictions you can add onto this because the list never ends, but one that got me was that you can't get paid while traveling outside the country. Every day you're gone, that's a day they slash off your month's pay. People will ofc say if you're so desperate to be on SSI you shouldn't be taking leisure trips, but this applies to people literally just crossing the border to visit family in Canada or Mexico. And they definitely keep track of when and where you're going and how long you were there. So there's an extra element of social isolation if you happen to be from an immigrant family.
I didn't know that. I thought it only mattered if you were out of the country for 30 days or more. Here's what the FAQ says:
Excerpt
If you leave the United States
Leaving the United States means leaving the 50 states, the District of Columbia, or the Northern Mariana Islands. Usually, if you leave the United States for 30 days or more, you can no longer get SSI.
If you move to Puerto Rico, you’re considered to be outside the United States for SSI purposes only. People who live in American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands cannot receive SSI.
If you plan to leave the United States, tell us before you leave. We need to know the date you plan to leave and the date you plan to come back. Then, we can tell you if your SSI will be affected.
After you have been outside the United States for 30 or more days in a row, your SSI can’t start again until you have been back in the country for at least 30 straight days. There are special rules for dependent children of military personnel who leave the United States. They may be able to get or apply for SSI while overseas. There are also exceptions for students studying abroad.
Source (warning: PDF). After what you've said, that "Then, we can tell you if your SSI will be affected" sounds especially ominous, but this page seems to indicate that benefits aren't affected if the time out of the country is less than thirty days.
If you move to Puerto Rico, you’re considered to be outside the United States for SSI purposes only. People who live in American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands cannot receive SSI.
Empire moment.
It honestly sounds like something they'd do, so I'll get a firm answer from a case worker beforehand if I ever have the chance to leave the country. At least I know for sure that although I can't leave my state for more than thirty days (given the state's portion of the benefits), they don't dock me when I'm elsewhere.
These fucking limits that are enacted without mandatory, automatic inflation adjustments really just gives up how much of a sham this country is. Even at the best of times, these "solutions" were just never intended to be supported.
unrelated anecdote about damage limits in criminal statutes
I knew somebody who the cops charged with a fucking 3rd degree misdemeanor over breaking a window while they were drunk - which they'd already paid for - because the bill was >500$ and that was the limit PA had set IN 1991 or earlier (that was the earliest version of the statute with a digitized copy available). Thankfully we got it thrown out, almost certainly because they were white.
Same thing happens with some kinds of theft and shoplifting charges. When the limits were set they were worth vastly more. With inflation the limits are now trivial amounts of money compared to what they were intended to be. But hey, more slave labor for the state amirite?
The charge categories are becoming less and less relevant as it’s getting more and more likely that they just summarily execute you
Word. Anyone who looks at US convictions and sees that something like 98% of federal convictions and 95% of state convictions are obtained via plea bargains? That's not a legal system, that's forced confessions. "I don't give a shit if you did it. Sign the paper and you get two years plus probation. Force this to go to trial and you get 10 years. Now sign."
If this was an "in bad country" thing everyone would assume those rates were gotten under torture. Like America is so efficient we don't even bother with show trials, we just force them to confess and send them to prison.
The threat of a long sentence at the end of a trial if you lose is one aspect, but the really insidious part is that you'll probably spend longer locked up (in pre-trial detention) regardless of whether you are found innocent, compared to just taking the plea bargain.
You pretty much always have to waive that right in order to do anything more than accept the first plea bargain in a case. Even negotiating for a better plea they make you waive it, because everything takes so long. Took me like almost a year of pre-trial supervision before we finally reached a plea I felt I could take. I did fuck up though, so I definitely wasn’t going to take it to trial if I could avoid it. I can’t imagine how horrid the process is for those innocent or being charged with ridiculous charges. It was bad enough living in that hell knowing that I’d fucked up and deserved some sort of justice applied against me. Thankfully I pulled my head out of my ass, sobered up, and funny enough, once I wasn’t drunk all the time, my left leanings came flooding back in a wave of memories as I could think again and I went even further left than I was before I got pulled into hedonism.
You have the right to a speedy trial, and you'll only get the evidence through discovery the day before the trial commences.
Yeah. There've been so many maddening, terrifying stories of people, kids, being held in pre-trial detention of years, or even dying, because
"they're a flight risk".and often people in county lockup are postively wistful for DOC prison time. 23/7 lockdown, often maximum security facilities and because of overcrowding, 3 or 4 to a cell
obviously don't get me started on jails in the desert states of the U.S.
it's designed to break you even though you are technically "innocent until proven guilty"
In Norway they have a queueing system (
) where you can be sentenced to prison but put on a waitlist until a slot opens up.It can really fuck with people because they don't know when the government is going to pick them up and chuck them in prison (only that it will happen in the next couple of years)
What's even the point? If they're not enough of a threat to society to be immediately isolated then this is just pure sadism.
I always get into arguments with people trying to do the "East Asian (usually Japan in the past, sometimes China now due to the propaganda push) countries legal systems are so draconian, 99% conviction rate omg" thing because when you look at things from a material perspective, the "someone in the government with relevant authority decided you might have done a crime, do you end up in prison as a result?" rates aren't higher than in the US, they're lower.
In China prosecutors drop cases that don't looks like they're going to result in conviction. In Japan, cases that aren't a lock just don't get an indictment in the first place. In Japan or China you can be judged likely innocent by the system and not lower the conviction rate while you can be deemed guilty in the US without raising the rate.
It's entirely "bizarre and mysterious orient " shit.
Right? It's so incredibly ass over teakettle 1984 catch-22 the matrix simulacra and simlution schniff schniff ideology that it's absolutely maddening!
As if through the power of complicated accounting and terminology one can change reality. "Well mine is called a plea bargain so it's not really a conviction."
I hate this country, this reminded me of last year before my mom died. when she got injured from her workplace, she tried to apply for disability and got denied. and she was worried of going homeless from all her medical bills. she was thinking of getting a disability lawyer to help with this, but her health ended up declining very fast before she could get to that
I'm so sorry, comrade.
Anecdotally, from a friend of mine, everyone gets denied on their first disability application. An attorney is a de facto requirement. Probably intentional in order to cull the numbers. Wonderful system.
100%. Everyone gets denied and it is 100% to cull people. If you ask them they'd tell you it's to encourage people to go back to work and not cheat the system, which is obvious bullshit.
Fuck this hypocritical country.
We are run by literal malthusians who want to apply video game morality into real life.
I have heard that, and it is pretty evil that they do that. Especially since like. Going to last year, when this happen, my mom hardly could walk, yet they still thought she could work? She needed a walker and she couldn't go far due to her workplace pretty much hurting her back. She couldn't even drive anymore or go to the store. Along with carrying an oxygen tank due to another medical conditions of hers. How could they still think she could still work and not need disability?
I'd joke that they are just mandating disabled people open a savings account under their mattress but in reality they were never going to pay disabled people enough to actually have savings anyway
If they find out you have cash saved anywhere, they will make you pay it back. That is if you don't get convicted of a felony for lying to the SSA/IRS. They even have a hotline people can call to report this "fraud," so snitches can snitch (and they don't even get rewarded).
Imagine if you had a relative or friend or member of your community and you decide to snitch on their tepid "disability fraud".
someone i know's mom was slinging her excess pain medication for cash and then had to cut the person off that she was selling it to (because her doctor retired and her medication was massively cut down). that person then reported her as revenge. she did six months in jail and then was cut off from benefits for a long time. even after becoming totally disabled (like unable to walk).
her disability finally killed her 2 years ago.
I’ll be honest every person who so much as touched your friend’s moms paperwork in this process deserves to be fucking shot
i agree. she was finally able to get full disability later on but the government forced her to drop the $150k of backpay she was owed in exchange for a couple hundred $ a month
they only survived thanks to a medical settlement payout from different lawsuits.
here's the fun part: her disability was caused by exposure to asbestos from the U.S. military
was a "friend" before she was able to beg for a a percentage of her monthly script in exchange for needed cash. obviously was cut off from all contact by the family
supposedly she herself got locked up later for stealing electronics from people she was staying with. not a good person: don't steal from or narc on regular people
"Fraud"
I hate this fucking country so much. Saving fucking pennies so you can meet the most basic needs while evading the fucking disabilty gestapo, they have the absolute fucking gall to call it "fraud".
Hate. Hate. Let me tell you how much i have come to hate america since i began to live.
So hypothetically, what if you gave everything you didn't spend to a land project that was incorporated as a 501c3, and you had permission to go to that land project whenever?
How solid is this idea?
Oh hey this is me! I can't work at all because my disability basically gives me about four hours out of the day where I can sit up, if that. SSDI pays a little under working a 20 hour workweek for me, so it's either: work part-time and feel physically awful or not work and get a low amount of money I'm not allowed to save or invest with.
Any side hustles like doing art commissions or gig work also mean having to pay back what I made or else I lose all benefits. Basically that means doing free labor because I end up with zero more dollars and that's not far from scabbing.
My retirement plan is global warming.
I going to somewhat safely assume, like the security theater and cruelty-for-its-own-sake fare enforcement bullshit in NYC mass transit systems, it costs more to enforce the cruelty than to stop doing it entirely. SSI may cost less overall if all the means testing cruelty and all the extra bean counter paperwork and investigations and panopticon shit was all ceased.
Capitalism is supposedly about profits and cost-cutting above all else, but like Netflix/Discovery suits that decide to terminate profitable shows because of personal biases against some shows (or even just their fandoms), sometimes malice trumps economic incentive.
Definitely a safe assumption. I did the math once for the salary of a SNAP fraud investigator and they would have had to kick something like two dozen full families off benefits every month to even justify their annual pay, let alone overhead, administration . . .
sometimes malice trumps economic incentive.
The health insurance that comes with my SSI just denied coverage for a medication that might help me manage my disability.
I'm so sorry. I don't have anything else to say about that, but I'm going to go to bed reflecting on that petty cruelty you've experienced.
Ah, shit, I've spent the last few days wondering how these people sleep at night and then I end up contributing to a comrade's insomnia instead.
I can't imagine. Every day you're looking people in the face telling them that a state that absolutely could help them is instead condemning them to torment and death. Every single day, all day long.
Social security won't cover a drug cocktail injected into my spine that I should be getting monthly but it's like $3,000 a shot. It's approved for people with my condition but only if they got it from diabetes. If it's the result of a trauma injury, it's not FDA approved, so it's not covered.
Before I lost that coverage, the doctors and I were looking into weaning me off vicodin. That didn't happen, so now I've been on it for over a decade (you're only supposed to take it for like 6 months at most lmao).
Goddamn them. So you had the coverage, and they took it away? This fucking country.
Yah I lost coverage when my mom retired because I had to switch providers.
MFW once again it’s CHUDs putting holier-than-thou sanctimony over a functioning society and not the people that think racism is wrong.
Wait until you learn that women in the United States couldn't open a bank account without their husband's permission until the late 1970s or that disabled people in most states can be paid under minimum wage.
I keep saying it: modern day Sparta.
The US loves finding new ways to try to purge the “weak” from society and a scary amount of US citizens think this is a good thing to try to prevent “the weak” from surviving.
If anyone unironically believes in the law of the jungle, they should be forced to return to monke.
Aktion T4 but instead of giving you the dignity of a bullet to the head they make you crawl on your knees begging for life as the machine slowly weighs down on you.
threadIt seems like every day I learn something new about this terrible country
It should be $5077 for an individual or $7516 for a family today if adjusted for inflation.
Which is still pathetic obviously, there should be no limit or if you really feel the need to have a limit it should be like, $100k or more, but $5000 would still be such a huge improvement
Chuds need to understand this and I wish more would talk about it.
They don't care either way, in their reality of "personal responsibility" there is no room for empathy in a similar was as the liberal thinks that such measures are just and that the oppressed should never demand more. Both are two dichotomies of the fascist state, the hatred towards the weak and the worship of the "process" of the state.
Almost no one knows outside disability and chronic illness circles. The squad tried to get some reforms a few years ago but that obviously ate shit. Idk if it even made it to committee.
of course I know many people on this and its a catch 22 nightmare but also what they replaced welfare with for white people in the south so they could keep getting money while all black people were kicked off welfare if they couldn't be a slave for mcdonalds or whatever.
They limit the amount of property you can own here was like... 5k in 2019, which is not thoroughly explained whether that means the current price of things, or what it would get on the second hand market etc etc. You certainly couldn't have a house or apartment until covid when suddenly a bunch of conservative voters were jobless.
AFAIK for the feds you can own one house and one car that won't count against you. And you'll enver have enough money to repair or replace either.
(mine was for Australia, and I only remember dimly because I just logged my items as what I think I could reasonably get on the market, and computers depreciate very rapidly, no one seemed to question it)
