The Social Security Administration (SSA) is the federal agency responsible for paying pensions to taxpayers who retire from the workforce or are unable to work due to a disability. The social program also administers Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). In the latter, some children can benefit, provided they meet certain requirements. Currently, the agency serves over 71 million beneficiaries both abroad and within the United States, but the most vulnerable amongst them continue to be the children that fall, directly or indirectly, under their care, as minors are unable to fend for themselves.

Requirements for Receiving Social Security SSI Benefits

According to the SSA, children suffering from severe physical or intellectual disorders such as cancer, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, low birth weight, or total loss of vision or hearing qualify for SSI benefits. Additionally, the child’s disability must last at least 12 months or result in death. The SSA maintains a list of diseases and medical criteria specifically used for evaluating child-related claims.

Eligibility ends at 18 years of age, although a person under 22 years who regularly attends primary or secondary school may still be considered a “child” for benefit purposes.

But even with these guidelines in place not every child will qualify for benefits, as they are under their parents care and their personal circumstances will affect the care they are able to give their children and the support they will need from the state. For instance, since SSI places a lot of weight on assets and these are of course owned by the parents in the case of minor children, they may not get the entire amount in benefits they would be entitled to receive because of these assets.

As a general rule, SSI is geared towards individuals who don’t earn more than $1,971 from work each month but the income limit increases for couples and when parents apply for children. Additionally, the program requires you to have little to no resources, $2,000 for individuals and $3,000 for couples; but, if you are a parent applying for a child, these numbers increase by $2,000 to cover a wider demographic.

Since resources is a very wide concept, there are some things that are always exempt from counting towards them, like your home and the land it’s on, as long as you live there, one vehicle per household, most personal belongings and household goods and property you can’t use or sell. Nevertheless, this is not always enough to sustain a family, which is why here are other forms of income that also do no count towards these numbers and that help families immensely:

• State SSI supplement payments
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits (food stamps)
• Section 8 housing vouchers
• Rent rebates or property tax refunds
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
• Certain expenses for people with blindness
• Certain expenses for people with disabilities

New rules for SSI brought forth by the SSA

In order to improve access to resources, especially for families, the SSA has decided to Expand the Definition of a Public Assistance Household. This expanded definition will now “include households receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments and households where not all members receive public assistance. The expanded definition will allow more people to qualify for SSI, increase some SSI recipients’ payment amounts, and reduce reporting burdens for individuals living in public assistance households.”

While it seems like a small change in the grand scheme of things, the rule will allow for families to receive higher levels of assistance than previously because according to the SSA, “if an applicant or recipient is determined to be living in a public assistance household, the agency assumes they are not receiving assistance from other household members that would otherwise be counted as income.”

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