>HalfthePlanet.com News Flash August 10, 2000 The Marriage Penalty: What You Need to Know By Barbara Waxman Fiduccia Exclusive to HalfthePlanet.com Are you a person with a disability and about to get married? Before waltzing down the aisle, keep this in mind If you have Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI), Supplemental Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or SSDI as a childhood disability beneficiary (CDB) and get married, the Social Security Administration (SSA) could reduce or eliminate your benefits. Like parents giving away their only daughter, SSA believes that, once you are married, they are no longer responsible for your financial well being. Losing Support in Sickness and in Health People with disabilities who have relied on SSI, SSDI and SSDI CDB, must now choose between the lesser of two evils to maintain vital benefits live secretly with a partner -- or divorce. I know because I faced the marriage penalty myself. I am a working woman with a severe disability who relies on Medicaid and personal assistance services. Before getting married, I was on SSA’s 1619(b) work incentives program to keep these services. My then fiancé, who is now my husband, is also disabled, but was not an SSA beneficiary. Before we got married, we discussed the possibility that our marriage would mean termination of my benefits. Here is what couples face * If you receive SSI and marry someone who also receives SSI, your individual benefits will automatically revert to the SSI couple's rate of $769 per month. As a couple, your resource allowance will also shrink from $2,000 per person to $3,000 per couple. * If you marry someone who does not receive SSI, part of his or her resources may be deemed as yours. This may reduce your allowance or make you ineligible for SSI entirely. < for the rest, see: http://www.halftheplanet.com/000808/departments/health/article3.html Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
