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Alert: You are not Eligible for SSI because of Excess Income

You indicated that you would like to receive SSI and Medicaid but you believe that your income or resources are too great to allow you to be eligible. Additionally, either you are not making any Employability Investments (spending or saving for any educational or training expenses, equipment purchases, or other expenses that should improve your future financial self-sufficiency) or the amount you reported spending and/or saving per month for these employability investments, even if included in a PASS, is too low for you to become eligible for SSI.

You should double check your answers to these questions and make sure your answers are accurate.

It appears that, in fact, your countable monthly income does exceed the limit for SSI eligibility. However, if you had employability investments (and/or work expenses not included in an IRWE) of at least the amount shown in the text result, and if you included that amount in an approved PASS, you could become eligible for SSI and Medicaid benefits (assuming that you are otherwise eligible). You would have to use that money to pay for goods or services that would help you prepare for and get a job or start a business that would make you more self-supporting.

Remember, your goal under this scenario is to temporarily set aside some of your current income so that you can become eligible for SSI and Medicaid. During this period, you would use the money you set aside in a PASS to help yourself become more self-supporting later. You would be investing in your future. When you achieve the occupational goal in your PASS, your earnings would be higher than they are now. At that time, your PASS will end and your eligibility for SSI and Medicaid may end. If your eligibility ends, you would have used the temporary SSI and Medicaid benefits to help support yourself during the period you were becoming more self-sufficient.

NOTE: Your PASS must end when you achieve your goal.

If you can set aside income to become eligible for SSI (and Medicaid) while you invest in your future employability under an approved PASS, WorkWORLD can assist you in determining what the consequences might be on your net income and benefits. You can begin to do this by following this procedure:

"WHAT-IF?" STEPS

1.        Create a New Situation by clicking the New Situation icon on the Toolbar or choosing Situation, New from the Main Menu.

2.        If you have only entered one situation, the new situation will be based on it. Otherwise, choose the column containing this recommendation as the column on which to base the new situation. (The new column will contain the same answers as the chosen column until you make changes.)

3.        Go to the top of the new column. Enter a situation label such as "PASS for SSI Eligibility".

4.        Under the Employability Investments section, make sure the answer is Yes to the question "Employability Investments: Are you spending or saving for any educational or training expenses, equipment purchases, or other expenses that should improve your future financial self-sufficiency?".

5.        For the following question "How much are you spending and/or saving per month for these employability investments?" answer with at least the dollar amount shown in the text result.*

*NOTE: If you have already answered that you have some non-disability-related work expenses, you should be able to include those expenses in your PASS. You should subtract the amount of those expenses from the amount shown in the text result. The result will be the minimum additional amount of employability investments that you need for SSI eligibility.

6.           In the Work Incentive Information section, under Plan for Achieving Self-Support (PASS), answer Yes to the question "PASS reducing Countable Income: Are you claiming any of your employability investments and/or work expenses under a Plan for Achieving Self Support (PASS)?".

7.           Then enter the suggested amount already shown in the answer for the next question "How much of these employability investments and work expenses per month are you claiming under a PASS?".

8.           Finally, review the numeric and graph outputs for changes to your net income and benefits, and the text outputs for additional recommendations specific to your actual situation.

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