Module #4

Using SSI Work Incentives to Create Economic Safety Nets and Pathways to Work

This toolkit will help vocational rehabilitation (VR) counselors understandand explain to youth and their families the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program’s range of work incentives that create a pathway toward work and an economic safety net in the event a work attempt is not sustained.

1. If an SSI beneficiary receives a monthly Social Security disability payment, the SSI program will exclude and not count the first $20 of the Social Security received.
True | False
2. If a youth receives SSI, is not a student, and works, the SSI program will exclude the first $65 of monthly gross earning ($85 if there is no unearned income) and one third of remaining earned income.
True | False
3. SSI’s Student Earned Income Exclusion rule allows a student, under age 22, who regularly attends school to earn up to $1,870 gross in a month or $7,550 gross per year in 2018 without any of that money counted as income by the SSI program.
True | False
4. A transition-aged youth has a learning disability and because of it does not presently have the skills to take public transportation to and from a job. The state vocational rehabilitation agency pays for a training program to teach the youth how to use public transportation at a cost of $150 per month for three months. The $150 expense will qualify as an impairment related work expense (IRWE).
True | False
5. An SSI beneficiary resides in one of 41 states (plus the District of Columbia) in which Medicaid eligibility is automatic for SSI recipients. If the SSI beneficiary works and, as a result, gets a reduced monthly SSI payment, Medicaid will continue to be automatic so long as he person gets at least $100 in monthly SSI payments.
True | False
6. If an SSI beneficiary earns too much in a month to qualify for an SSI payment, he or she may qualify for continued Medicaid under the 1619(b) program, but only if annual earned income is $25,000 or less.
True | False