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Questions about Unincurred Business Expenses? Social Security Has the Answers

Oct 24, 2018

Social Security’s Ticket to Work program has been running a highly reader-friendly series on work incentives and recently pointed the spotlight on Unincurred Business Expenses, which is one of the incentives available to self-employed SSDI recipients. You can find...

2019 SSI and SSDI COLAs Announced!

Oct 17, 2018

Social Security has announced the Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) for 2019 and it's good news as there will be a 2.8% increase in benefits in the new year. This means that the standard SSI Federal Payment for an individual will go from $750 to $771 a month; an SSI...

Cash on The Nail: Emergency Advance Payments (EAP) and Immediate Payments (IP)

Sep 26, 2018

It is somewhat heartening to find that Social Security has recognized that there are times and situations where some people will find themselves utterly without a means to pay for necessary services. To that end the agency has gone some way to provide financial...

Wait For It: SSI and Retrospective Monthly Accounting

Sep 20, 2018

Given the tight space between subsistence and penury in which SSI recipients are often required to exist it is something of a peculiarity of the SSI program that there’s a specific policy that can appear to leave beneficiaries bereft at the very moment they have the...

What’s Different When Working on Child’s Benefits

Sep 4, 2018

Within the wonderful work of federal and state benefits we encounter benefits programs that seem determined to add to their already confusing regulations by laboring under titles that are unquestionably similar to other programs. Thus we have SSI and SSDI, Medicare...

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In Exile: Impending Medicaid Eligibility Denials for Non-Citizens

Emma Lazarus’ 1883 sonnet ‘The New Colossus’ was written in the same year that she established in New York the Society for the Improvement and Colonization of East European Jews; an organization designed to provide aid to refugees escaping antisemitic violence and...

Education Matters: Maintaining Child’s Benefits at 18

Much to the dismay of students and teachers, another summer vacation has come and gone and one must again spend those long hours in the classroom looking wistfully out of the window as someone whitters on about some nonsense or other. For a small but significant...

In The Loop: SSA Changes Policy on Re-routing Calls

As anyone who has been obliged to call Social Security knows, the wait time has been prohibitively long. In the last year of the Biden administration the average wait was 60 minutes, which was bad enough, but in 2025 under the present regime that had increased to a...

An August Occasion: Celebrating National ABLE Savings Day

This year August 14 marks, amongst other notable events, the 236th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Väräla which brought about an end to the Russo-Swedish War; exactly 124 years later the arrival of British Expeditionary Force in France saw the beginning of...

Priority Treatment: SSA Adds to the Compassionate Allowance List

A fresh press release from Social Security will provide some good news to potential beneficiaries who experience a range of disabilities. Fourteen relatively obscure conditions have been added to the agency’s Compassionate Allowance policy. The policy allows Social...

Won’t Get Food Again: SNAP Eligibility in Decline

Recent articles in The Atlantic and by NPR have highlighted the growing concern in the reduction in the number of food stamp beneficiaries over the past year. The current figure, as estimated by the Department of Agriculture, stands at around 37 million recipients,...

Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Social Security Adds New Features to MySSA Accounts

A recent press release from Social Security looked to encourage applicants who have found themselves having to appeal a denial to use a My Social Security account when working through that process. Evidently very keen on getting you on board, the agency has produced a...

Summer Break: Maryland’s SUN Bucks Program

Originally launched by Governor Wes Brown back in 2024 Maryland’s Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer program, which trades under the SUN Bucks title, is back for another year. SUN Bucks is the state’s provision to allow eligible families with children aged between 5...

Food Security: New EBT Cards Coming Soon!

Maryland’s Department of Human Resources announced last week that they would be rolling out new Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards as part of a modernization plan designed to ward off food stamp thievery. The new cards will have the same capabilities as regular...

No Going Back: Medicaid Retroactive Eligibility Span Reduced

The Budget Reconciliation Act of 2025 has provided this blog with a seemingly ceaseless font of bad news stories. Here’s another one. Currently someone applying for Medicaid can get retroactive coverage for up to three months prior to the date of application as long...