https://www.thenation.com/article/society/ssi-rules-families-poverty/

The Supplemental Security Income program (SSI) was created in 1972 under the Nixon administration to provide financial support to low-income seniors and disabled people. An effort to federalize state-level adult support programs across the country, SSI is a means-tested program—there are financial requirements to be eligible. In the case of SSI, as of its last adjustment in 1989, enrollees cannot have savings of more than $2,000 as an individual or $3,000 as a family. Furthermore, SSI beneficiaries are prohibited from having retirement accounts, life insurance policies, certain types of personal property, funeral/burial policies, and access to other types of income.

[emphasis mine]

OMG I’m gonna test some means! hillgasm

amerikkka

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    I going to somewhat safely assume, like the security theater and cruelty-for-its-own-sake fare enforcement bullshit in NYC mass transit systems, it costs more to enforce the cruelty than to stop doing it entirely. SSI may cost less overall if all the means testing cruelty and all the extra bean counter paperwork and investigations and panopticon shit was all ceased.

    Capitalism is supposedly about profits and cost-cutting above all else, but like Netflix/Discovery suits that decide to terminate profitable shows because of personal biases against some shows (or even just their fandoms), sometimes malice trumps economic incentive.

    • Wertheimer [any]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      Definitely a safe assumption. I did the math once for the salary of a SNAP fraud investigator and they would have had to kick something like two dozen full families off benefits every month to even justify their annual pay, let alone overhead, administration . . .

      sometimes malice trumps economic incentive.

      The health insurance that comes with my SSI just denied coverage for a medication that might help me manage my disability.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        I’m so sorry. I don’t have anything else to say about that, but I’m going to go to bed reflecting on that petty cruelty you’ve experienced.

        • Wertheimer [any]@hexbear.net
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          1 month ago

          Ah, shit, I’ve spent the last few days wondering how these people sleep at night and then I end up contributing to a comrade’s insomnia instead.

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 month ago

            I can’t imagine. Every day you’re looking people in the face telling them that a state that absolutely could help them is instead condemning them to torment and death. Every single day, all day long.

      • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        Social security won’t cover a drug cocktail injected into my spine that I should be getting monthly but it’s like $3,000 a shot. It’s approved for people with my condition but only if they got it from diabetes. If it’s the result of a trauma injury, it’s not FDA approved, so it’s not covered.

        Before I lost that coverage, the doctors and I were looking into weaning me off vicodin. That didn’t happen, so now I’ve been on it for over a decade (you’re only supposed to take it for like 6 months at most lmao).