{"id":144,"date":"2026-08-23T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/?p=144"},"modified":"2026-08-23T09:20:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T13:20:24","slug":"ssi-hr-8298-in-kind-support-income-resource-limits-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/ssi-hr-8298-in-kind-support-income-resource-limits-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"SSI bill H.R. 8298 would stop counting help from family and friends as income for the $994 benefit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The SSI Savings and Efficiency Act of 2026 would extend a principle the Social Security Administration already applied to food in September 2024, while the $2,000 and $3,000 resource limits stay where they are.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A bill now before the House of Representatives, <strong>H.R. 8298, the SSI Savings and Efficiency Act of 2026<\/strong>, would stop the <strong>Social Security Administration (SSA)<\/strong> from counting in-kind help from family and friends as income for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) purposes. It was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/house-bill\/8298\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">introduced on April 15, 2026<\/a> by Representatives <strong>Sharice Davids<\/strong> and <strong>Mary Gay Scanlon<\/strong>. It has not been enacted, and introduction is only the first step in the legislative process.<\/p>\n<h2>What in-kind support means in the SSI rulebook<\/h2>\n<p>SSI is a needs-based program, so SSA looks not only at cash income but at help a recipient receives in kind. Historically, when a relative or a friend covered part of a recipient&#8217;s food or housing costs, that help could be treated as income and reduce the monthly payment. That is the mechanism the bill targets.<\/p>\n<p>The federal benefit rate for 2026 is <strong>$994 a month for an individual<\/strong> and <strong>$1,491 for a couple<\/strong>, with $498 for an essential person. Countable income is subtracted from that rate, after the general income exclusion of $20 a month, which has not changed since 1974. SSA&#8217;s own worked example shows how quickly the arithmetic bites: $300 of Social Security income minus the $20 exclusion leaves $280 countable, and $994 minus $280 leaves an SSI payment of $714.<\/p>\n<h2>What already changed on September 30, 2024<\/h2>\n<p>The bill does not arrive in a vacuum. Three SSA rules took effect on <strong>September 30, 2024<\/strong>, each narrowing what counts against an SSI payment:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Food no longer counts as in-kind support and maintenance. SSA estimated that roughly <strong>90,000 people<\/strong> would gain about <strong>$131 a month<\/strong> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalregister.gov\/documents\/2024\/03\/27\/2024-06464\/omitting-food-from-in-kind-support-and-maintenance-calculations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">89 FR 21199<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li>The rental subsidy exception, previously limited to a handful of states, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalregister.gov\/documents\/2024\/04\/11\/2024-07675\/expansion-of-the-rental-subsidy-policy-for-supplemental-security-income-ssi-applicants-and\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">expanded nationwide<\/a>, with an estimated 41,000 people gaining about $132 a month.<\/li>\n<li>The definition of a public assistance household was widened to include households receiving SNAP, and it no longer requires every member of the household to receive assistance. SSA put the number of people affected at about <strong>277,000<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Taken together, those changes established that not every form of help should be treated as money in a recipient&#8217;s pocket. H.R. 8298 would carry the same logic further, from food specifically to in-kind help from family and friends generally.<\/p>\n<h2>The resource limits are a separate rule<\/h2>\n<p>What has not moved is the ceiling on assets. To qualify for SSI, a person may hold no more than <strong>$2,000 in countable resources<\/strong>, and a couple no more than <strong>$3,000<\/strong>, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ssa.gov\/ssi\/text-resources-ussi.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SSA&#8217;s resources guidance<\/a>. Those limits sit in a different part of the rulebook from the income counting the bill addresses.<\/p>\n<p>Several things are excluded from that calculation: the home the applicant lives in, one vehicle regardless of value, household goods and personal effects, burial funds up to $1,500 per person, life insurance with a face value of $1,500 or less, and ABLE account balances up to $100,000.<\/p>\n<h2>The population involved<\/h2>\n<p>If we look at the data, SSA&#8217;s Monthly Statistical Snapshot for July 2026 counted <strong>7.3 million SSI recipients<\/strong>, with an average payment of <strong>$736.54<\/strong> a month, below the federal benefit rate precisely because countable income is subtracted from it.<\/p>\n<p>For now the bill remains pending, with no outcome to report. Separately, SSA has continued to work on the program administratively: on July 24, 2026 it announced six SSI improvement initiatives, including the full rollout of its electronic wage-reporting tool. The next SSI payment is due on Tuesday, September 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>H.R. 8298 would stop SSI counting in-kind help from family and friends as income, building on the September 30, 2024 rules. The $2,000 limit stays in place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","featured_image_fetch_priority_high":"1","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","main_content_tag":"div","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"hide","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"custom","post_date_format_custom":"d\/m\/Y H:i","show_post_category":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"no-crop","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-715"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,2,3],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-disability-benefits","tag-social-security","tag-ssi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174,"href":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tododisca.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}