If I Contribute to My Household Income, Can I Increase the Amount of SSI I Get?
- Supplemental Security Income pays disability benefits without requiring Social Security tax payment. To be eligible to receive SSI benefits, you must be disabled, blind or older than age 65, and you must have low income. The allowable limit of income you can have depends on your marital status, whether you live alone and your medical condition.
- If you are disabled and qualify to receive SSI benefits, the maximum benefit that applies to you depends on your marital status, your total income and your expenses. If you are single and you contribute to your household income and expenses, the maximum amount of SSI benefits you may be able to receive is $674. If you are married and you contribute to your household income and expenses, you may be eligible to receive up to $1,011.
- If you live in someone else's household and do not contribute to the household income and expenses, the maximum amount of SSI benefits you are eligible to receive is lower. If you are single, you can receive up to $449.34 in SSI monthly benefits. If you are married, you can receive up to $674 per month.
- Contributing to your household income has the advantage of increasing the maximum SSI benefit you can receive. If you contribute to your household income as a single individual, you can receive up to $224.66 more per month than if you did not contribute. If you contribute to your household income as a married person, you can receive up to $337 more per month than you would if you did not contribute.
- The exact benefit amount you are eligible to receive depends on your countable income. Your countable income depends on how much you contribute to your household and other deductions that the Social Security Administration makes. To determine the exact amount of benefits you are eligible to receive, the Social Security office applies the maximum SSI benefit rate that corresponds to you and subtracts it from your countable income. The difference is your monthly SSI benefits. For example, if you are single and you contribute to your household income (or you live alone), the maximum benefit rate you can receive is $674 per month. If your countable income is $356 per month, you subtract $356 from $674, and the result, which is $318, is your monthly SSI benefit.
