Author: Elizabeth Blessing
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SSI sets $498 a month for an essential person, but only someone who has lived with the recipient since December 1973
Social Security’s 2026 SSI payment table lists a separate row for an “essential person,” set at $498 a month, next to the $994 for an eligible individual and the $1,491 for an eligible individual with an eligible spouse. The row invites a quick reading that any relative or friend who lives with an SSI recipient…
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Food stamps do not count as income for SSI, and neither do income tax refunds or home energy assistance
The Social Security Administration keeps a list of what it does not count as income when it works out an SSI check, and three entries on it cover receipts that arrive at ordinary households every year: the value of food stamps, income tax refunds and home energy assistance. None of them reduces the Supplemental Security…
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Indiana storm victims also get until February 1 for estimated tax payments that came due on or after August 11
The third installment of 2026 estimated federal income tax came due on September 15, and in 21 Indiana counties it did not have to be paid on that day. A self-employed worker, partner or S corporation shareholder in the area can make that payment, and the one that follows in January, as late as February…
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The proposed scholarship credit would reach households up to 300 percent of area median gross income, and would make a grantor spend 90 cents of every income dollar on scholarships
Whether a child can receive a scholarship paid for through the new federal scholarship tax credit comes down first to household income, and the proposed rules put the cutoff at 300 percent of the area median gross income. The same proposal tells the nonprofits that hand out the scholarships to put 90 cents of every…
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Florida approved a renters-insurance cut at American Modern covering about 121,898 policies, effective October 11 at new business and renewal
About 121,898 renters-insurance “exposures” at American Modern Home Insurance Company are covered by a rate decrease that Florida regulators approved this month, and the new rates apply to new business and renewal starting October 11. The count comes from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, which announced the approval on October 2, and it is…
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Social Security’s Medicaid buy-in example subtracts $85 from a month’s earnings before counting half of what is left
One of the Social Security Administration’s own worked examples for the Medicaid buy-in takes a worker’s monthly earnings of $3,563.75, subtracts $85, and then counts only half of what remains. The result, $1,739.37 a month, is the figure SSA compares with a poverty-based limit. The arithmetic is short, but it shows the order in which…
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A federal court struck five states’ food-stamp purchase limits on June 22, leaving eighteen with standing approval
USDA’s SNAP food-restriction waiver table, updated October 2, 2026, lists 23 states as approved to limit what food stamps buy. Five of those approvals were vacated by a federal court on June 22, which leaves 18 states whose waivers still stand: eight with a limit already at the register and ten waiting on a start…
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Indiana storm filers get until February 1 for 2025 returns, but the IRS says payments that were due April 15 are not covered
Indiana taxpayers who asked for an extension on their 2025 federal returns, and who live or run a business inside the storm-hit part of the state, now have until February 1, 2027 to file. The Internal Revenue Service set that date on September 2 in release IN-2026-01, covering severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes and flooding…
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Social Security’s 2027 Wednesday payments begin January 13, and SSA tells recipients to allow three extra mailing days before calling
Social Security’s Wednesday payments in 2027 start on January 13, according to the schedule the Social Security Administration has already published for the year. Recipients with birth dates on the 1st through the 10th are paid that day, those born on the 11th through the 20th follow on January 20, and those born on the…
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SSI recipients must report a change in income, resources or living arrangements by the 10th of the next month or risk a payment cut
Supplemental Security Income recipients have a standing monthly deadline: a change in income, resources or living arrangements has to reach the Social Security Administration by the 10th day of the month after it happens. SSA restated that rule in an October 1, 2026 post, along with a warning that reporting late may bring penalties that…