Pursuit's Take
The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) primary approach for encouraging employment for transition-age youth (ages 14 to 17) with disabilities who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is work incentives that allow them to keep at least some of their SSI benefits and Medicaid coverage while they work. But few transition-age youth benefit from these incentives. SSI is a means-tested program that provides cash benefits to eligible low-income aged, blind, and disabled individuals. SSA administers several work incentives that allow SSI recipients to exclude some income and expenses when calculating SSI benefits.
The work incentive targeted specifically to younger SSI recipients is the Student Earned Income Exclusion (SEIE), which allows income to be excluded from benefits calculations if a recipient is a student under age 22. However, less than 1.5 percent of all transition-age youth—and generally less than half of those with earnings—benefited from SEIE in 2012 through 2015. SSA does not analyze these data, and thus cannot determine why the majority of youth with earnings are not benefiting from SEIE, when they may be eligible. SSA data also show that almost no youth benefited from other incentives that allow them to exclude earnings used for specific purposes, such as the Impairment-Related Work Expenses incentive.
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