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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    California
    Posts
    1,045

    Default Re: Student Loans and SSI

    SSA does have access to earned income information - but not any earlier than three months after the wages are paid. And sometimes not until a year after the wages are paid. Same with unemployment. By the time they get the information, the SSI recipient is overpaid. More work for SSA. There are computer matching programs. Anything the IRS can find will be reported to SSA for SSI recipients. If the dollar amounts are off by a certain amount, then the office gets an alert and a long list of cases of SSI recipients with the mismatch. That's how SSA knows before you told them. But that also tells me that your wife didn't report your wages the month after you worked because then there would be no mismatch. If you worked in March and she reported it in April, then her May check would have been reduced. The reason the staff seems more interested in catching her in a lie is that it appears to me that she has failed to report your wages. So in doing so, she created an overpayment which is again more work. SSA has a responsibility And it is also possible that she didn't fully report that you were separated in a timely manner. I will tell you that it is easy to remove a spouse from a record, it is more work to add a spouse to a record.

    It is probably true that SSA staff doesn't like to see claimants who fail to report, over and over and over. Sadly, it happens all the time.

    If she tries to think of reporting events as the job duties she has in order to get an SSI check every month, she may find it easier to stomach. We all have to do job duties that we don't necessarily like.

    The general rule is that income from one month determines payment two months later. There are exceptions. Wages you earn in June reduce her SSI in August. You may want August's income to only affect August, but that takes a crystal ball. How much are you going to make each month for the rest of the year? There are also cutoffs and limitations created by the US Treasury on when checks can be increased or reduced on the first of each month.

    The earned income exclusion is the first $65 and 1/2 the remainder. There is also a $20 general exclusion. So if you had a paycheck with GROSS earnings of $500, the countable earned income is $207.50. But for unemployment, pensions, non-wage income, there is only a $20 exclusion so a $500 unemployment check, $480 would be countable. It is an incentive to go to work. Then there is an allocation made for you and your minor children and your court ordered child support. The rest is considered income to her.

    I will say this again. In caps. THE TWO OF YOU WILL HAVE MORE MONEY OVERALL IF YOU GO TO WORK. Her SSI only has to be $1 for her to keep Medicaid.

    Her SSI may have also been reduced when you were separated because of in-kind income. How did she pay all her food and shelter bills when the two of you were separated or did her family help her?

    I can understand problems with grasping affecting many activities of daily life. But she doesn't need to lift heavy soup pots ever and maybe shouldn't have babies that she can't lift. And without transportation, it would be difficult to get bags of groceries home. But it doesn't sound to me like she can't be left alone for part of the day when you go to work or school.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Posts
    5

    Default Re: Student Loans and SSI

    Hello Janke: Sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner but had a computer crash and lost lot's of data. (username password stuff) I appreciate your detailed answers very much but I'm still very confused about this system. I have a couple of questions about your last post to this thread. Again thanks very much for taking the time to answer so much confusion on my part.

    >> How much are you going to make each month for the rest of the year?<<
    SSA was notified that the Census job was temporary and only for 30 days, before I left SC.


    >>If you only worked one month at the Census and she lost 1/2 of her benefits for a year, something is wrong. Either you misunderstood or SSI has the wrong information from her. <<

    Actually I attempted to make full notice of this stuff before we split apart. I informed SSA (at there office) that a: I was leaving, and b: all information on Census Job. the nature of the Census Payroll was a mess. All the financial verification SSA needed from Census had literally NOT been processed and would not be processed for nearly thirty more days due to the ennormous number of temporary employees for the 2010 Census. I repeatedly tried to explain this to SSA, I asked my Senator (Bill DiMint of SC) to contact SSA AND Census to get some inter-agency expedition on this and so on before I even left SC. Then in July after I had already left SC for FL my spouse called me to tell me they'd cut her SSI from 607.00 to three hundred something. they may be three months behind, but all the confusion from there end put me three months behind just trying to get the proper dates back to them. So they were made aware of my Census Job Information before we split apart for that two month period.

    >>The earned income exclusion is the first $65 and 1/2 the remainder. There is also a $20 general exclusion. So if you had a paycheck with GROSS earnings of $500, the countable earned income is $207.50. But for unemployment, pensions, non-wage income, there is only a $20 exclusion so a $500 unemployment check, $480 would be countable. It is an incentive to go to work. Then there is an allocation made for you and your minor children and your court ordered child support. The rest is considered income to her.<<

    Let me see if I am understanding what you're saying... my unemployment check is for $150.00 p/wk. So they would deduct $20.00 from her monthly SSI check?

    I am confused about something you stated:
    >> "I think it makes more sense for you to go to work and earn $700 (before taxes) a month. You don't increase your debt. You earn Social Security credits. You get a work history that you can reference when you go looking for work"<<

    I am currently getting $632.00 per month from unemployment. That and what she is getting from SSI right now (due to non reporting from previous year not Census) is only $360.00 per month now. So how would me earning $700.00 per month change anything?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    California
    Posts
    1,045

    Default Re: Student Loans and SSI

    I think you need to talk to your local office who can do the actual inputs.

    When you were paid by the Census office, didn't they give you a paycheck with a paycheck stub detailing how you were paid? That is the best evidence. Did you throw it away?

    No you misunderstood me about the $20 general exclusion and how deemed income is computed.

    So SSI is being reduced by both your current income from unemployment and recovery of an overpayment for unreported income from 2010? My remark about wages was that it made more sense to me that someone go to work and earn $700 a month to avoid borrowing money that will have to be paid back at a later date. Using money made today to pay today's bills makes more sense than taking money you might earn tomorrow to pay back the loan you used to pay today's bills. Going into debt is just pushing your financial freedom further into the future; some people never dig out.

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