Social Security has rescinded Acquiescence Ruling 90-2(2), the agency’s 1990 notice on how to apply a 1989 federal appeals court decision, Ruppert v. Bowen, to SSI recipients in New York, Connecticut and Vermont. The ruling is gone because a single national rule now covers the same question: what counts against an SSI check when someone pays less rent than a place is worth.
That national rule has been in effect since Sept. 30, 2024. Under it, rent that falls below the lesser of $351.33 or the home’s market rent in 2026 is counted as income, called in-kind support and maintenance. Anyone on SSI who rents from a relative, or lives in a relative’s home for a small payment, is the kind of recipient it reaches.
The question for those households is concrete: how much rent is enough? A recipient who pays at least $351.33 a month, or the full market rent when that is lower, has no rental subsidy counted. A recipient who pays less has the gap treated as income against the check, as the Social Security Administration’s spotlight page on the living arrangements rules explains.
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What the rescinded ruling covered
Ruppert v. Bowen was decided by the Second Circuit in 1989. The court said Social Security may count help with housing as income, but the amount counted has to reflect an actual economic benefit to the recipient. Social Security then issued the acquiescence ruling so that its offices in New York, Connecticut and Vermont would follow the decision.
The rescission notice itself is a short one. A rule-tracking site lists it under Aug. 31, 2026 as the Commissioner of Social Security giving notice that AR 90-2(2) is rescinded. The notice does not describe what the ruling held.
Social Security had signaled the move in 2024. When it published the final rule, the agency wrote that it would rescind AR 90-2(2) as obsolete once the final rule took effect. The Federal Register document gave Sept. 30, 2024 as the effective date.
One rule for the whole country since Sept. 30, 2024
Until that date, the rental subsidy exception applied only in the Second Circuit states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont, plus Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin in the Seventh Circuit, and Texas. The final rule made the exception apply nationwide. The same rule is the one that took food out of the in-kind support calculation on the same date.
The test compares the rent a recipient is required to pay with the presumed maximum value, a figure Social Security sets at one-third of the federal benefit rate plus $20. With the 2026 rate at $994, that comes to $351.33. If the required rent equals or exceeds the presumed maximum value or the current market rental value, whichever is less, the arrangement is treated as a business deal and nothing is counted.
If the rent is lower, the agency counts the difference. Say a house would rent for $900 and the recipient pays $200. The lesser of the two benchmarks is $351.33, so the gap is $151.33 before the $20 general exclusion. That is the amount that reduces the check, not the $700 distance from the market rent.
What it means when a relative pays or charges nothing
Social Security’s guide says in-kind support and maintenance is food, shelter or both that somebody else provides. Since 2024 only the shelter part counts. Help with rent, a mortgage or utilities can reduce SSI, but nothing is counted for a person who lives alone and pays the whole shelter bill, or who lives with others and pays a fair share of the costs.
The guide works through the extremes. In one example, a sibling pays $800 a month in rent for a recipient who lives alone. The agency counts that as in-kind support, and because of the cap the amount counted is $351.33, leaving a $662.67 SSI payment.
In another, a relative lets a recipient live in a house rent-free that would rent for $900 on the open market. The countable amount is again capped at $351.33. With a $300 Social Security check in the example, the SSI payment drops to $362.67.
The cap is why a large market rent does not wipe out the check. The most that housing help can cost a recipient is the one-third reduction plus the $20, or $351.33 in 2026, according to the guide. Paying a fair share of household costs avoids the reduction entirely.
Who has to pay attention
The rescission changes little for most people, because the national rule already governed their cases for two years. It matters most for recipients in the three Second Circuit states, whose cases were once handled under the old ruling. The national standard is the one Social Security applies to them now.
The spotlight page says the rental subsidy test applies when the recipient or someone in the household is related to the landlord. It sets the same line for everyone: counted rent is charged only when the required monthly rent falls below the lesser of the presumed maximum value and current market rental value.
The rescission notice does not give its own effective date. The date that governs how rent is counted is the national rule’s, Sept. 30, 2024.
Renting from a relative while on SSI?
The risk is paying a relative less than the benchmark without knowing it, and finding out only when a review cuts the check by the gap. Because the rule compares rent with two different benchmarks, the right number differs from household to household.
The SSI & Disability Action Kit lists the 2026 SSI income and resource limits in a 74-page guide, along with review and reporting steps and an income and resource organizer for setting down who pays what toward rent and utilities before a review.
Get the SSI review checklist and organizer for documenting rent paid to a relative →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
